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TEN ACRES ENOUGH 



A PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE, 



HOW A VERT SMALL FARM MAT BE MADE TO 
KEEP A VERT LARGE FAMILT. 



3Bi:teixsibe autj 3Proffta6le lEpperfence 

IN 
THE CULTIVATION OF THE SMALLER FRUITS. 



NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY JAMES MILLER, 

(successor to 0. S. FRANCIS & CO.,) 

522 BROADWAY. 
MDOCOLXIV. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1864, 

By JAMES MILLER, 

la the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the 

Southern District of New York. 



'^ 



A. ALVORB, PUI^JTES. 



PREFACE 



The man who feeds his cattle on a thousand hills 
may possibly see the title of this little volume paraded 
through the newspapers ; but the chances are that he 
will never think it worth while to look into the vol- 
ume itself. The owner of a hundred acres will 
scarcely step out of his way to purchase or to borrow 
it, while the lord of every smaller farm will be sure 
it is not intended for him. Few persons belonging 
to these several classes liave been educated to believe 
Ten Acres Enough. Born to greater ambition, they 
have aimed higher and grasped at more, sometimes 
wisely, sometimes not. Many of these are now 
owning or cultivating more land than their heads or 
purses enable them to manage properly. Had their 
ambition been moderate, and their ideas more prac- 
tical, their labor would be better rewarded, and this 
book, without doubt, would have found more readers. 

The mistaken ambition for owning twice as much 
land as one can thoroughly manure or profitably cul- 
tivate, is the great agricultural sin of this country. 
Those who commit it, by beginning wrong, too fre- 
quently continue wrong. Owning many acres is the 



4: PEEFACE. 

sole idea. High cultivation of a small tract, is one 
of which they have little knowledge. Too many in 
these several classes think they know enough. They 
measure a man's knowledge by the number of his 
acres. Hence, in their eyes the owner of a plot so 
humble as mine must know so little as to be unable 
to teach them any thing new. 

Happily, it is not for these that I write, and hence 
it would be unreasonable to expect them to become 
readers. I write more particularly for those who 
have not been brought up as fanners — for that nu- 
merous body of patient toilers in city, town, and 
village, who, like myself, have struggled on from year 
to year, anxious to break away from the bondage of 
the desk, the counter, or the workshop, to realize in 
the country even a moderate income, so that it be a 
sure one. Many such are constantly looking rounj 
in this direction for something which, with less men- 
tal toil and anxiety, will provide a maintenance for 
a growing family, and afford a refuge for advancing 
age — some safe and quiet harbor, sheltered from the 
constantly recurring monetary and political convul- 
sions which in this country so suddenly reduce men 
to poverty. But these inquirers find no experienced 
pioneers to lead the way, and they turn back upon 
themselves, too fearful to go forward alone. Books 
of personal experience like this are rare. This is 
written for the information of the class referred to. 



PEEFACE. 5 

for men not only willing, but anxious to learn. Once 
in tlie same predicament myself, I know their long- 
ings, their deficiencies, and the steps they ought to 
take. Hence, in seeking to make myself fully un- 
derstood, some m-ay think that I have been unneces- 
sarily minute. But in setting forth my own crudi- 
ties, I do but save others from repeating them. Yet 
with all this amplification, my little contribution will 
occasion no crowding even upon a book-shelf which 
may be already filled. 

I am too new a farmer to be the originator of all 
the ideas which are here set forth. Some, which 
seemed to be appropriate to the topic in hand, have 
been incorporated with the argument as it progressed ; 
while in some instances, even the language of writers, 
whose names were unknown to me, has also been 
adopted. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



Chapter I.— City Experiences— Moderate Expectations 9 

Chapter II. — ^Practical Views — Safety of Investments in 

Land 15 

Chapter III. — Resolved to go — Escape from Business — 

Choosing a Location 22 

Chapter IV. — Buying a Farm — Anxiety to ^ell — Forced to 

quit 29 

Chapter V. — Making a Purchase — ^First Impressions 37 

Chapter VI. — Planting a Peach-orchard — How to preserve 

Peach-trees 43 

Chapter VII. — Planting Raspberries and Strawberries — 

Tricks of the Nursery 53 

Chapter Vin. — Blackberries — A Remarkable Coincidence. 60 

Chapter IX. — The Garden — Female Management — Com- 
forts and Profits 69 

Chapter X. — Cheated in a Cow — A Good and a Bad One — 

The Saint of the Barnyard 76 

Chapter XL— A Cloud of Weeds— Great Sales of Plants. . 86 

Chapter XII, — Pigs and Poultry — Luck and 111 Luck 98 

Chapter XIIL— City and Country Life contrasted 110 



8 COISTTENTS. 



PAGE 



Chapter XIV. — Two Acres in Truck — Revolution in Agri- 
culture 118 

Chapter XV.— Birds, and tlie Services tliey Render 131 

Chapter XVI.— Close of my First Year— Its Loss and Gain 141 

Chapter XVIL— My Second Year— Trenching tlie Garden 

— Strawberry Profits 148 

Chapter XVIII.— Raspberries— The Lawtons 167 

Chapter XIX.— Liquid Manures— An Illustration 177 

Chapter XX.— My Third Year— Liquid Manure— Three 

Years' Results 188 

Chapter XXI. — A Barnyard Manufactory — Land Enough — 

Faith in Manure 200 

Chapter XXII.— Profits of Fruit-growing— The Trade in 

Berries 212 

Chapter XXIII. — Gentleman-farming — Establishing a Home 230 
Chapter XXIV. — Unsuccessful Men — Rebellion not Ruin- 
ous to Northern Agriculture 238 

Chapter XXV.— Where to Locate— East or West 248 



TEN ACRES E:^0UGH. 



CHAPTEE I. 

CITY EXPERIENCES MODERATE EXPECTATIONS. 

My life, up to the age of forty, had. been spent in 
my native city of Philadelphia. Like thousands of 
others before me, I began the world without a dollar, 
and with a very few friends in a condition to assist 
me. Having saved a few hundred dollars by dint of 
close a23plication to business, and avoiding taverns, 
oyster-houses, theatres, and fashionable tailors, I 
married and went into business the same year. These 
two contemporaneous drafts upon my little capital 
proving heavier than I expected, they soon used it 
up, leaving me thereafter greatly straitened for means. 
It is true my business kept me, but as it was con- 
stantly expanding, and was of such a nature that a 
large proportion of my annual gain was necessarily 
invested in tools, fixtures, and machinery, I was 
nearly always short of ready cash to carry on my 
operations with comfort. At certain times, also, it 
ceased to be profitable. The crisis of 1837 nearly 
ruined me, and I was kept struggling along during 

1* 



10 TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 

the five succeeding years of hard times, until the re- 
vival of 1842 came round. Previous to this crisis, 
necessity had driven me to the banks for discounts, 
one of the sore evils of doing business upon insuffi- 
cient capital. As is always the case with these insti- 
tutions, they compelled me to return the borrowed 
money at the very time it was least convenient for 
me to do so — they needed it as urgently as myself. 
But to refund them I was compelled to borrow else- 
where, and that too at excessive rates of interest, thus 
increasing the burden while laboring to shake it off. 

Thousands have gone through the same unhappy 
experience, and been crushed by the load. Such can 
anticipate my trials and privations. Yet I was not 
insolvent. My property had cost me far more than 
I owed, yet if offered for sale at a time when the 
whole community seemed to want money only, no 
one could have been found to give cost. I could not 
use it as the basis of a loan, neither could I part with 
it without abandoning my business. Hence I strug- 
gled on through that exhausting crisis, haunted by 
perpetual fears of being dishonored at bank,— lying 
down at night, not to peaceful slumber, but to dream 
of fresh expedients to preserve my credit for to-mor- 
row. I have sometimes thought that the pecuniary 
cares of that struggle were severe enough to have 
shortened my life, had they been much longer pro- 
tracted. 

Besides the mental anxieties they occasioned, they 
compelled a pinching economy in my family. But 
in this latter effort I discovered my wife to be a 
jewel of priceless value, coming up heroically to* the 



TKN ACRES ENOUGH. 11 

task, and relieving me of a world of care. Without 
her aid, her skill, her management, her uncomplain- 
ing cheerfulness, her sympathy in struggles so inade- 
quately rewarded as mine were, I should have sunk 
into utter bankruptcy. Her economy was not the 
mean, penny- wise, pound foolish policy which many 
mistake for true economy. It was the art of calcu- 
lation joined to the habit of order, and the power of 
proportioning our wishes to the means of gratifying 
them. The little pilfering temper of a wife is despi- 
cable and odious to every man of sense ; but there is 
a judicious, graceful economy, which has no con- 
nection with an avaricious temper, and which, as it de- 
pends upon the understanding, can be expected only 
from cultivated minds. Women wh(> have been well 
educated, far from despising domestic duties, will 
hold them in high respect, because they will see that 
the whole happiness of life is made up of the happi- 
ness of each particular day and hour, and that much 
of the enjoyment of these must depend upon the 
punctual practice of virtues which are more valuable 
than splendid. 

If I survived that crisis, it was owing to my wife's 
admirable management of my household expenses. 
She saw that our embarrassment was due to no impru- 
dence or neglect of mine. She thus consented to' 
severe privations, uttering no complaint, hinting no 
reproach, never disheartened, and so rarely out of 
humor that she never failed to welcome my return 
with a smile. 

But in this country one convulsion follows another 
with disheartening frequency. I lived through that 



12 ^ TEN ACBES ENOUGH. 

of 1837, paid my debts, and had managed to save 
some money. My wife's system of economy liad 
been so long adhered to, that in the end it became to 
some extent habitual to her, and she still continued 
to practise great frugality. I became insensibly ac- 
customed to it myself Children were multiplying 
around us, and we thought the skies had brightened 
for all future time. When in difficulty, we had often 
debated the j)ropriety of quitting the city and its 
terrible business trials, and settling on a few acres in 
the country, where we could raise our own food, and 
spend the remainder of our days in cultivating 
ground which would be sure to yield us at least a re- 
spectable subsistence. We had no longing for exces- 
sive wealth ; a.mere competency, though earned hj 
daily toil, so that it was reasonably sure, and free 
from the drag of continued indebtedness to others, 
w^as all we coveted. 

I had always loved the country, but my wife pre- 
ferred the city. I could take no step but such as 
would be likely to promote her happiness. So long 
as times continued fan-, we ceased to canvass the pro- 
priety of a removal. We had children to educate, 
and to her the city seemed the best- and most con- 
venient place for qualifying them for future useful- 
ness. Then, most of our relations resided near us. 
Our habits were eminently social. We had made 
numerous friends, and among our neighbors there 
had turned uj) many valuable families. We felt even 
the thought of breaking away from all these cordial 
ties to be a trying one. But the refuge of a removal 
to the country had taken strong hold of my mind. 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 13 

Indeed, it may be said that I was born with a pas- 
sion for living on a farm. It was fixed and strength- 
ened by my long experience of the business vicissi- 
tudes of city life. For many years I had been a 
constant subscriber for several agricultural journals, 
whose contents I read as carefully as I did those of 
the daily papers. My wife also, being a great reader, 
came in time to study them almost as attentively. 
Every thing I saw in them only tended to confirm my 
longing for the country, while they gave definite 
views of what kind of farming I was fit for. In fact 
they educated me for the position before I assumed 
it. I am sure they exercised a powerful influence in 
removing most of my wife's objections to living in 
the country. I studied their contents as carefully as 
did the writers who prepared them. I watched the 
reports of crops, of experiments, and of profits. The 
leading idea in my mind was this — that a man of 
ordinary industry and intelligence, by choosing a 
proper location within hourly reach of a great city 
market, could so cultivate a few acres as to insure a 
maintenance for his family, free from the ruinous vi- 
brations of trade* or commerce in the metropolis. 
All my reading served to convince me of its sound- 
ness. I did not assume that he. could get rich on the 
few acres which I ever expected to own ; but I felt 
assured that he could place himself above want. I 
knew that his peace of mind would be sm'e. With 
me this was dearer than all. My reading had 
satisfied me that such a man would find Ten 
Acres Enough, and these I could certainly com- 
mand. 



14 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

» As I did not contemplate undertaking the manage- 
ment of a large grain farm, so my studies did not 
run in that direction. Yet I read every thing that 
came before me in relation to such, and not without 
profit. But I graduated my views to my means, and 
so noted with the utmost care the experiences of 
the small cultivators who farmed five to ten acres 
thoroughly. I noted their failures as watchfully as 
their successes, knowing that the former were to be 
avoided, as the latter were to be imitated. As op- 
portunity offered, I made repeated excursions, year 
after year, in every direction around Philadelphia, 
visiting the small farmers or truckers who supplied 
the city market with fruit and vegetables, examining, 
inquiring, and treasuring up all that I saw and heard. 
The fund of knowledge thus acquired w^as not only 
prodigious, but it has been of lasting value to me in 
my subsequent operations. I found multitudes of 
truckers who were raising large families on five acres 
of ground, while others, owning only thirty acres, 
had become rich. 

On most of these numerous excursions I was careful 
to have my wife wdth me. I wanted her to see and 
hear for herself, and by convincing her judgment, to 
overcome her evidently diminishing reluctance to 
leaving the city. My uniform consideration for her 
comfort at last secured the object I had in view. 
She saw so many homes in which a quiet abundance 
was found, so many contented men and women, so 
many robust and bouncing children, that long before 
I was ready to leave the city, she was quite impa- 
tient to be gone. 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 15 



CHAPTEE II. 

PRACTICAL VIEWS SAFETY OF INVESTMENTS IN LAND. 

There was not a particle of romance in my aspi- 
rations for a farm, neither liad • I formed a single 
visionary theory wliicli was there to be tested. My 
notions were all sober and prosaic. I had struggled 
all my life* for dollars, because abundance of them 
produces pecuniary comfort : and the change to 
country life was to be, in reality, a mere continua- 
tion of the struggle, but lightened by the assurance 
that if the dollars thus to be acquired were fewer in 
number, the certainty of earning enough of them 
was likely to be 'greater. Crops might fail under 
skies at one time too watery, at another too brassy, 
but no such disaster could equal those to which com- 
mercial pursuits are uninterruptedly exposed. They 
have brassy skies above them as well as farmers. 
For nearly twenty years I had been hampered with 
having notes of my own or of other parties to pay ; 
but of all the farmers I had visited, only one had 
ever given a note, and he had made a vow never to 
give another. My wife was shrewd enough to ob- 
serve and remark on this fact at the tftne, it was so 
different from my own experience. She admitted 
there must be some satisfaction in carrying on a 
business which did not require the giving of notes. 

Looking at the matter of removal to the country 



16 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

in a practical liglit, I found that in the city I was 
paying three hundred dollars per annum rent for a 
dwelling-house. It was the interest of five thousand 
dollars ; yet it afforded nothing but a shelter for my 
family. I might continue to pay that rent for fifty 
years, without, at the end of that 'time, having ac- 
quired the ownership of either a stone uj^on the 
chimney, or a shingle in the roof. If the house rose 
in value, the rise would be to the owner's benefit, not 
to mine. It would really be injurious to me, as the 
rise would lead him to demand an increase of his 
rent. But put the value of the house intt) a farm, or 
even the half of it — the farm would have a dwelling- 
house upon it, in which my famity would find as 
good a shelter, while the land, if cultivated as indus- 
triously as I had always cultivated business, would 
belie the flood of evidence I had been studying for 
many years, if it failed to yield to my efforts the re- 
turns which it was manifestly returning to others. 
"We could live contentedly on a thousand dollars a 
year, and here we should have no landlord to pay. 
My wife, in pinching times, has financiered us through 
the year on several hundred less. I confess to having 
lived as well on the diminished rations as I wanted 
to. Indeed, until one tries it for himself, it is incred- 
ible what dignity there is in an old hat, what virtue 
in a time-worn coat, and how savory the dinner-table 
can be made*without sirloin steaks or cranberry tarts. 
Thus, let it be remembered, my views and aspira- 
tions had no tinge of extravagance. My rule was 
moderation. The tortures of a city struggle without' 
capital, had sobered me down to being contented 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 17 

with a bare competency. I might fail in some par- 
ticulars at the outset, from ignorance, but I was in 
the prime of life, strong, active, industrious, and 
tractable, and what I did not know I could soon learn 
from others, for farmers have no secrets. Then I 
had seen too much of the uncertainty of banks and 
stocks, and ledger accounts, and promissory notes, to 
be willing to invest any thing in either as a perma- 
nency. At best they are fluctuating and uncertain, 
up to-day and down to-morrow. My great prefer- 
ence had always been for land. 

In looking around among my wide circle of city ac- 
quaintances, especially among the older families, I 
could not fail to notice that most of them had grown 
rich by the ownership of land. More than once had I 
seen the values of all city property, improved and 
unimproved, apparently disappear ; — lots without 
purchasers, and houses without tenants, the com- 
munity so poor and panic-stricken that real estate 
became the merest drug. Yesterday the collapse 
was caused by the destruction of the ]!^ational Bank ; 
to-day it is the Tariff. Sheriffs played havoc with 
houses and lands incumbered by mortgages, and 
lawyers fattened on the rich harvest of fees inaugu- 
rated by a Bankrupt Law. But those who, undis- 
mayed by the wreck around them, courageously held 
on to land, came through in safety. The storm, 
having run its course and exhausted its wrath, gave 
place to skies commercially serene, and real estate 
swung back with an irrepressible momentum to its 
former value, only to keep on advancing to one even 
greater. 



18 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

I became convinced that safety lay in the owner- 
ship of land. In all my ihqniries both before leav- 
ing the city, as well as since, I rarely heard of a 
farmer becoming insolvent. When I did, and was 
careful to ascertain the cause, it turned ont that he 
had either begmi in debt, and was thus hampered at 
the beginning, or had made bad bargains in specula- 
tions outside of his calling, or wasted his means in 
riotous living, or had in some way utterly neglected 
his business. If not made rich by heavy crops, I 
could find none who had been made poor by bad 
ones. 

The reader may look back over every monetary 
convulsion he may be able to remember, and he will 
find that in all of them the agricultural community 
came through with less disaster than any other inter- 
est. Wheat grows and corn ripens though all the 
banks in the world may break, for seed-time and 
harvest is one of the divine promises to man, never 
to be broken, because of its divine origin. They 
grew and ripened before banks were invented, and 
will continue to do so when banks and railroad 
bonds shall have become obsolete. 

Moreover, the earthly fund for whose acquisition 
we are all striving, we naturally desire to make a 
permanent one. As we have worked for it, so we 
trust that it will work for us and our children. Its 
value, whatever that may be, depends on its perpe- 
tuity — the continuance of its existence. A man seeks 
to earn what will support and serve not only himself, 
but his posterity. He would naturally desire to have 
the estate descend to children and grandchildren. 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 19 

This is one great object of his toil. What, then, is 
the safest fund in which to invest, in this country ? 
What is the only fund which the experience of the 
last fifty years has shown, with very few exceptions, 
would be absolutely safe as a provision for heirs ? 
How many men, within that period, assuming to act 
as trustees for estates, have kept the trust fund in- 
vested in stocks, and when distributing the princi- 
pal among the heirs, have found that most of it had 
vanished ! Under corporate insolvency it had melted 
into air. 'No prudent man, accepting such a trust, 
and guaranteeing its integrity, would invest the fund 
in stocks. 

Our country is filled with pecuniary wrecks from 
causes like this. Thousands trust themselves during 
their lifetime, to manage this description of property, 
confident of their caution and sagacity. With close 
watching and good luck, they may be equal to the 
task ; but the question still occm^s as to the probable 
duration of such a fund in families: What is its 
safety when invested in the current stocks of the 
country ? and next, what is its safety in the hands of 
heirs ? There are no statistics showing the probable 
continuance of estates in land in families, and of es- 
tates composed of personal property, such as stocks. 
But every bank cashier will testify to one remarkable 
fact — that an heir no sooner inherits stock in the 
bank than the first thing he generally does is to sell 
and transfer it, and that such sale is most frequently 
the first notice given of the holder's death. 

This preference for investment in real estate will 
doubtless be objected to by the young and dashing 



20 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

business man. But lands, or a fund secured by real 
estate, is unquestionably not only tbe highest security, 
but in the bands of lieirs it is the only one likely to 
survive a single generation. Hence the wisdom of 
the common law, which neither permits the guardian 
to sell the lands of his ward, nor even the court, in 
its dis.cretion, to grant authority for their sale, except 
upon sufficient grounds shown, — as a necessity for 
raising a fund for the support and education of the 
ward. Even a lord chancellor can only touch so 
sacred a fund for this or similar reasons. The com- 
mon law is wise on this subject, as on most others. 
It is thus the experience and observation of mankind 
that such a fund is the safest, and hence the provi- 
sions of the law. 

Those, therefore, who acquire personal property, 
acquire only what will last about a generation, longer 
or shorter. Such property is quickly converted into 
money — it perishes and is gone. But land is hedged 
round with numerous guards which protect it from 
hasty spoliation. It is not so easily transferred ; it is 
not so secretly transferred ; the law enjoins deliberate 
formalities before it can be alienated, and often the 
consent of various parties is necessary. When all 
other guards give way, early memories of parental 
attachment to these ancestral acres, or tender reminis- 
cences of childhood, will come in to stay the spolia- 
tion of the hon^estead, and make even the prodigal 
pause before giving up this portion*of his inheritance. 

Throughout Europe a passion to become the owner 
of land is universal, while the difficulty of gratifying 
it is infinitely greater than with us. It is there enor- 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 21 

mously dear ; here it is absurdly cheap. It is from this 
universal passion that the vast annual immigration to 
this country derives its mighty impulse. As it reaches 
our shores it spreads itself* over the country in search 
of cheap land. Many of the most flourishing West- 
ern States have been built up by the astonishing in- 
flux of immigrants. In England, every landowner is 
prompt to secure every freehold near him, be it large 
or small, as it comes into market. Hence the number 
of freeholders in that country is annually diminishing 
by this process of absorption. This European passion 
for acquiring land is strangely contrasted with the 
American passion for parting with it. 



22 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



^ CHAPTEE III. 

RESOLVED TO GO — ESCAPE FEOM BUSINESS CHOOSING A 

LOCATION. 

The last thirty years have been prolific of great 
pecuniary convulsions. I need not recapitulate them 
here, as too many of them are yet dark spots on the 
memory of some who will read this. Their fre- 
quency, as well as their recurrence at shorter inter- 
vals than at the beginning of the century, are among 
their most remarkable features, baffling the calcula- 
tions of older heads, and confounding those of younger 
ones. As the century advanced, these convulsions 
increased in number and violence. The whole busi- 
ness horizon seemed full of coming storms, which 
burst successively with desolating severity, not only 
on merchants and manufacturers, but on others who 
had long before retired from business. 'No one could 
foresee this state of things. I will not stop to argue 
causes, but confine myself to facts which .none will 
care to contradict. 

These disasters made beggars of thousands in every 
branch of business, and spread discouragement over 
every community. I passed through several of them, 
striving and struggling, and oppressed beyond all 
power of description. How many more the com- 
munity was to encounter I did not know ; but I con- 
ceived it the part of j^rudence to place myself beyond 



TEN ACflES ENOUGH. 23 

the circle of their influence before I also had been 
prostrated. 

In spite of the losses thus encountered, I had been 
saving something annually for several years, when the 
stricture of 1854 came on, premonitory of the tre- 
mendous crash of 1857. Most unfortunately for 
my comfort, that stricture seemed to fall with pecu- 
liar severity on a class of dealers largely indebted to 
me. Many of them became embarrassed, and failed 
to pay me at the time, while to this day some of them 
are still my debtors. My old experiences of raising 
money revived, and to some extent I was compelled 
to go through the humiliations of similar periods. But 
the stricture was of brief duration, and I closed the 
year in far better condition than I had anticipated. 

But the trials of that incipient crisis determined 
me to abandon the city. I found that by realizing 
all I then possessed, I could command means enough 
to purchase ten to twenty acres, and I had grown 
nervous and apprehensive of the future. While pos- 
sessed of a little, I resolved to make that little sure 
by investing it in land. I had worked for the land- 
lord long enough. My excellent wife was now en- 
tirely willing to make the change, and our six chil- 
dren clapped their hands with joy when they heard 
that " father was going to live in the country." 

I had long determined in my mind what sort of 
farming was likely to prove profitable enough to 
keep us with comfort, and that was the raising of 
small fruits for the city markets. My attention had 
always been particularly directed to the berries. 
Some strawberries I had raised in my city garden 



24 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

with prodigious success. My friends, when they 
heard of my project, expressed fears that the mar- 
ket would soon be glutted, not exactly by the crops 
which I was to raise, but they could not exactly an- 
swer how. They confessed that they were extremely 
fond of berries, and that at no time in the season 
could they afford to eat enough ; a confession which 
seemed to explode all apprehension of the market 
being overstocked. 

But my wife and myself had both examined the 
hucksters who called at the door with small fruits, 
as to the monstrous prices they demanded, and 
had begged them, if ever a glut occurred, that they 
would call and let us know. But none had ever 
called with such information. It was the same 
thing with those who occupied stalls in the various 
city markets. They rarely had a sm-plus left unsold, 
and their prices were always high. A glut of fruit 
w^as a thing almost unknown to them. It was a safe 
presumption that the market would not be depressed 
by the quantity that I might raise. 

But here let me say something by way of paren- 
thesis, touching this common idea of the danger of 
overstocking the fruit-market of the great cities. It 
is a curious fact that this idea is entertained only by 
those who are not fruit-growers. The latter never 
harbored it. Their whole experience runs the other 
way, they know it to be a gross absurdity. Yet, 
somehow, the question of a glut has always been de- 
bated. Twenty years ago the nurserymen were ad- 
vised to close up their sales and abandon the busi- 
ness, as they would soon have no customers for trees — 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 25 

everybody was supplied. But trees have contin- 
ued to be planted from that day to this, and where 
hundreds were sold twenty years ago, thousands are 
disposed of now. Old-established nurseries have 
been trebled in size, while countless new ones have 
been planted. The nursery business has grown to a 
magnitude truly gigantic, because the market for 
fruit has been annually growing larger, and no busi- 
ness enlarges itself unless it is proved to be profit- 
able. 

The market cannot be glutted with good fruit. 
The multiplication of mouths to consume it is far 
more rapid than the increase of any supply that 
growers can effect. "Within ten years the masses have 
had a slight taste of choice fruits, and but little 
more. Indulgence has only served to whet their 
appetites. The more of them there is offered in the 
market, the more will there be consumed. Every 
huckster in her shamble, every vender of peanuts in 
the street, will testify to this. The modern art of 
semi-cookery for fruit, and of preserving it in cans 
and jars, has made sale for enormous quantities of 
those choicer kinds which return the highest profit to 
the grower. It is in the grain-market that panic 
often rages, but never in the fruit-market. If it 
ever enters the latter, the struggle is to obtain the 
fruit, not to get rid of it. 

The proper choice of a location was now to be the 
great question of my future success. I had deter- 
mined on giving my attention to the raising of the 
smaller fruits for the great markets of ^N'ew York and 
Philadelphia. I must therefore be somev/here on or 



26 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

near the railroad between those cities, and as near as 
j)ossible to a station. The soil of Pennsylvania, near 
Philadelphia, was too heavy for some of the lighter 
fruits. New Jersey, with its admirable sandy loam, 
light, warm, and of surprisingly easy tillage, was pro- 
verbially adapted for the growth of all market prod- 
uce, whether fruit or vegetable, and was at the same 
time a week or two earlier. Land was far cheaj)er, 
there was no State debt, taxes were merely nominal, 
and an acre that could be bought for thirty dollars 
could be made four times as productive as an acre of 
the best wheat land in Pennsylvania. Such results 
are regularly realized by hundreds of Jerseymen from 
year to year. 

It was also of easy access from the city for manure- 
boats. Every town within the range of my wants 
was well supplied with churches, schools, and stores, 
together with an intelligent and moral population. 
I should be surrounded by desirable neighbors, while 
an hour's ride by steamboat or railroad would place 
me, many times daily, among all my ancient friends 
in the city. We should by no means become her- 
mits. I knew the country so well from m;y numerous 
visits among the fruit-growers, when in search of 
information, as to anticipate but little difficulty in 
finding the proper location. 

By the mere accident of a slight revival in busi- 
ness in the early part of 1855, a party came along 
who was thus induced to purchase my stock and 
machinery. Luckily, he was able to pay down the 
whole amount in cash. I received what I considered 
at the time an excellent price ; but when I came to 



TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 27 

settle lip mj accounts and pay what I owed, I fonnd, 
to mj extreme disappointment, tliat bnt a little over 
two thousand dollars remained. 

This snm was the net gain of many years of most 
laborious toil. "Was it possible for farming to be a 
worse business than this ? I had made ten times as 
much, but my losses had been terrible. This, with 
my personal credit, was all the surplus I had saved. 
I remember now, that when thus discovering myself 
to be worth so little, I half regretted having given 
up my business for w^hat then appeared to me so in- 
adequate a sum. When selling, I was jubilant and 
thankful — when settled up, I was full of regrets. I 
ought to have had more. So difficult is it for tho 
human mind to be satisfied with that which is really 
best. 

But I little knew what the future was to bring 
forth, and how soon my want of thankfulness vv^as to 
be changed into the profoundest conviction that 1 
had providentially escaped from total rain, and come 
out comparatively rich. I had made myself snug 
upon my little farm when the tornado of 1857 toppled 
my former establishment into utter ruin. My suc- 
cessor was made a bankrupt, and his business was 
destroyed, leaving him overwhelmed with debt. He 
had lost all, while I had saved all. Had I not sold 
when I did, and secured what the sale yielded me, 
I too should have been among the wrecks of that ter- 
rific visitation. 

But I heard its warring in the quiet of my little 
farm-house, where it brought me neither anxiety nor 
loss. My position was like that of one sitting peace- 



28 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

fiillj by his wintry fireside, gazing on the thick 
storm without, and listening to the patter of the 
snow-flakes as the tempest drove them angrily against 
the window-pane, while all within was calm and 
genial. Instead of regrets for what I had failed to 
grasp, my heart overflowed with thankfulness for the 
comparative abundance that remained to me. My 
peace of mind was perfect. The unspeakable satis- 
faction was felt of being out of business, out of debt, 
out of danger — not rich, but possessed of enough. 
The thoughtful reader may well believe that subse- 
quent disturbances, rebellion, war, and even a more 
wide-spread bankruptcy — from all which my humble 
position made me secure — ^have only served to inten- 
sify my gratitude to that Divine Providence which 
so mercifully shaped my ways. 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 29 



CHAPTER TV. 

BUYING A FARM A LONG SEARCH ANXIETY TO SELL 

FORCED TO QUIT. 

As already stated, I had in round numbers a clear 
two thousand dollars, with which to buy and stock a 
farm, and keep my family while my first crops were 
growing. As I was entirely free from debt, so I de- 
termined to avoid it in the future. Debt had been 
the bitter portion of my life, not from choice, but of 
necessity. My wife took strong ground in support 
of this resolution — what we had she wanted us to 
keep. I had too long been aided by her admira- 
ble counsel to reject it now. She had a singular 
longing for seeing me my own landlord. Her reso- 
lution was a powerful strengthener of my own con- 
victions. 

Thus resolved, we set out in the early part of March 
to seek a home. I was particular to take my wife 
with me — I wanted her to aid in choosing it. She 
was to occupy it as well as myself She knew ex- 
actly what we wanted as regarded the dwelling-house, 
— the land department she left entirely to my judg- 
ment. I was determined that she should be made 
comfortable from the start, not only because she de- 
served to be made so, but to make sure that no cause 
for future discontent should arise. Indeed, she was 
really the best judge in this matter. She knew what 



30 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

tlie six cliildren needed ; slie was tlie model of a 
liousekeej)er ; there were certain little conveniences 
indispensable to domestic comfort to be secnred, of 
which she knew more than I did, while her judgment 
on most things was so correct, that I felt confident 
if she were fully satisfied, the whole enterprise would 
be a successful one. 

I loved her with the fervor of early married life — 
she had consented to my ]3lans — she was willing to 
share whatever inconveniences might belong to our 
new position — was able to lighten them by her un- 
flagging cheerfulness and thrift — and I was unwilling 
to take a single step in opposition either to her wishes 
or her judgment. Indeed, I had long since made up 
my mind, from observation of the good or bad luck 
of other men, that he who happens to be blessed with 
a wife possessing good sense and good judgment, suc- 
ceeds or fails in life according as he is accustomed to 
consult her in his business enterprises. There is a 
world of caution, shrewdness, and latent wisdom in 
such women, which their husbands too frequently 
disregard to their ruin. 

I am thus particular as to all my experiences ; for 
this is really a domestic story, intended for the mul- 
titudes who have suffered half a lifetime from trials 
similar to mine, and who yet feel ungratified long- 
ings for some avenue of escape. My object being to 
point out that through which I emerged from such a, 
life to one of certainty and comfort, the detail ought 
to be valuable, even if it fail to be interesting. It is 
possible that I may sink the practical in the enthusi- 
astic, and prove myself to be unduly enamored of my 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 31 

choice. But as it is success that makes the hero, so 
let my experience be accepted as the test. 

I had settled it in my mind that I would use a 
thousand dollars in the purchase of land, and that I 
could make Ten Acres Enough. This I was deter- 
mined to pay for at once, and have it covered by no 
man's parchment. But when we set out on our 
search, w.e found some difficulties. Every county in 
"New Jersey contained a hundred farms that were for 
sale. Most of them were too large for my slender 
purse, though otherwise most eligibly situated. Then 
we must have a decent house, even if we were forced 
to put up with less land. l!^umerous locations of this 
kind were oli'ered. The trouble was — keeping niy 
slender purse in view — that the farms were either 
too large or too small. My w^ife was not fastidious 
about having a fine house. On the contrary, I was 
often surprised to find her pleased with such as to 
me looked small and mean. Indeed, it seemed, 
after ten days' search, that the tables had been turned 
— she was more easily suited than myself. But the 
same deference which I paid to her wishes, she uni- 
formly paid to mine. 

It was curious to note the anxiety of so many land- 
owners to sell, and to hear the discordant reasons 
which they gave for desiring to do so. The quantity 
in market was enormous. All the real-estate agents 
had large books filled with descriptions of farms and 
fancy country-seats for sale, some to be had by pay- 
ing one-fourth of the purchase-money down, and 
some which the owners would exchange for merchan- 
dise, or traps, or houses in the city. Many of them 



82 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

appeared simply to want something else for what 
they already had. They were tired of holding, and 
desired a change of some kind, better if they could 
make it, and worse if they could not. City mer- 
chants, or thriving mechanics, had built country 
cottages, and then wearied of them — it was found in- 
convenient to be going to and fro — in fact, they had 
soon discovered that the city alone was their place. 
Many such told us that their wives did not like the 
country. 

Others had bought farms and spent great sums in 
improving them, only to sell at a loss. Farming did 
not pay an owner who lived away off in the city. 
Another class had taken land for debt, and wanted 
to realize. They expected to lose anyhow, and 
would sell cheap. Then there was another body of 
owners who, though born and raised upon the land, 
were tired of coimtry life, and wanted to sell and 
embark in business in the city. Some few were de- 
sirous of going to the "West. Change of some kind 
seemed to be the general craving. As I discovered 
that much of all this land was covered with mortgages 
of greater or less amount, it was natural to suppose the 
sheriff would occasionally turn uj), and so it really 
was. There were columns in some of the county 
papers filled with his advertisements. I sometimes 
thought the whole country was for sale. 

But yet there was a vast body of owners, many of 
them descendants of the early settlers, whom no con- 
sideration of price could tempt to abandon their in- 
heritances. They seemed to know and understand 
the value of their ancestral acres. We met with 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 33 

other parties, recent purchasers, who had bought for 
a permanency, and who could not be induced to selL 
In short, there seemed to be two constantly flowing 
streams of people — one tending from city to country, 
the other from country to city. Doubtless it is the 
same way with all our large cities. I think the latter 
stream was the larger. If it were not so, our cities 
could not. grow in population at a rate so much more 
rapid than the country. At numerous farm-houses 
inquiries were made if we knew of any openings in 
the city in which boys and young men could be 
placed. The city was evidently the coveted goal 
with too large a number. 

This glut of the land-market did not discourage 
us. We could not be induced to believe that land 
had no value because so many were anxious to dis- 
pose of it. We saw tliat it did not suit those who 
held it, and knew that it would suit us. But we 
could not but lament over the infatuation of many 
owners, who we felt certain would be ruined by 
turning their wide acres into money, and exposing it 
to the hazards of an untried business in the city. I 
doubt not that many of the very parties we then en- 
countered have, long before this, realized the sad fate 
we feared, and learned too late that lands are better 
than merchandise. 

One morning, about the middle of March, we 
found the very spot we had been seeking. It lay 
upon the Amboy Railroad, within a few miles of 
Philadelphia, within gunshot of a railroad station, 
and on the outskirts of a town containing churches, 
schools, and stores, with quite an educated society. 



34 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

The grounds com]3rised eleven acres, and tlie dwelling- 
house was quite large enough for my family. It 
struck the fancy of my wife the moment we came up 
to it ; and when she had gone over the house, looked 
into the kitchen, explored the cellar, and walked 
round the garden, she expressed the strongest desire 
to make it our home. 

There was barn enough to accommodate a horse 
and cow, with a ton or two of hay, quite an exten- 
sive shed, and I noticed that the barnyard contained 
a good pile of manure which was to go with the 
property. The buildings were of modern date, the 
fences were good, and there was evidence that a for- 
mer occupant had exercised a taste for fruit and 
ornamental trees, while the garden was in very fair 
condition. But the land had been wholly neglected. 
All outside of the garden was a perfect scarecrow 
of tall weeds, thousands of which stood clear up to the 
fence top, making sure that they had scattered seeds 
enough for twenty future crops. 

But I noticed that the land directly opposite was 
in the most admirable condition, and I saw at a 
glance that the soil must be adapted to the very pur- 
pose to which it was to be applied. The opposite 
ground was matted with a luxuriant growth of straw- 
berries, while rows of stalwart raspberries held up 
their vigorous canes in testimony of the goodness of 
the soil. A fine peach-orchard on the same neigh- 
boring property, seemed impatient to put forth and 
blossom unto harvest. The eleven acres could be no 
worse land than this, and though I had a horror of 
weeds, yet I was not to be frightened by them. I 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH 35 

knew that weeds were more indigenous to I^ew Jer- 
sey than even watermelons. 

This miniature plantation of eleven acres belonged 
to a merchant in the cit}^ He had taken it to secure 
a debt of eleven hundred dollars, but had pledged 
himself to pay the former owner whatever excess over 
that sum he might obtain for it. But pledges of that 
loose character seldom amount to much — the cred- 
itor consults his own interest, not that of the debtor. 
The latter had long been trjdng to sell, but in vain ; 
and now the former had become equally embarrassed, 
and needed money even more urgently than the 
debtor had done. The whole property had cost the 
debtor eighteen hundred dollars. His views in found- 
ing it were similar to mine. He meant to establish 
for himself a home, to which at some future period 
he -might retire. But he made the sad mistake of 
contuiuing in business in the city, and one disaster 
succeeding another, he had been compelled to aban- 
don his anticipated refuge nearly a year before we 
came along. 

All these facts I learned before beginning to 
negotiate for the purchase. As the banished ma,n 
related them to me, going largely into the history 
of his hopes, his trials, his disappointments, I 
found cause for renew^ed thankfulness over my su- 
perior condition. With a single exception, his ex- 
perience had been the counterpart of my own — ho 
had lost all and was loaded with debt, while I had 
saved something and owed no man. But when, iii 
language of the tenderest feeling, he spoke of his 
wife, whose highest passion had been gratified by the 



36 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

possession of a home so liumble as even this — when 
he described how happy she had been in her garden, 
and how grief-stricken at being compelled to leave 
it — his eloquence fairly made my heart ache. I am 
sure my wife felt the fnll force of all he said. Her 
own attachment to the spot had already begun to 
take root, and she could sympathize with this rude 
sundering of a long-established tie. 



TEN ACEE8 ENOUGH. 37 



CHAPTER Y. 

MA-R-ma A PURCHASE — FIRST IMPEESSIONS. 

The owner of these eleven acres had been for some 
montlis in tlie furnace of pecuniary affliction. He 
was going the way of nine-tenths of all the business 
flesh within the circle of my acquaintance. As a 
purchaser I did not seek him, nor to his representa- 
tive did myself or my wife let fall a single word in- 
dicating that we were pleased with the property. 
When fifteen hmidred dollars were named as the 
price, I did indulge in some expression of surprise, 
thinking it was quite enough. Discovering subse- 
quently that the owner was an old city acquaintance, 
I dropped in one morning to see him, and for an 
hour we talked over the times, the markets, the sav- 
age rates demanded for money, and how the spring 
business was likely to turn out. On real estate I was 
mute as a mouse, except giving it as my decided 
opinion that some holders were asking greater prices 
than they would be likely to realize. 

This side-thrust brought my friend out. He men- 
tioned his house and eleven acres, and eagerly in- 
quired if I did not know of some one who would 
buy. With as much indifference as I could assume, 
I asked his terms. He told me with great frankness 
that he was compelled to sell, and that his need of 
money was so great, that he might possibly do so 



38 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

whether the debtor got any thing or not. He urged 
me to find him a purchaser, and finally gave me the 
refusal of the place for a few days. 

I^ow, the plain truth was, that my anxiety to buy 
was quite as great as his was to sell. During the 
next week we met several times, when he invariably 
inquired as to the prospect of a purchaser. But I 
had no encouragement to ofier. When I thought I 
had fought shy long enough, I surprised him by say- 
ing that I knew of a purchaser who was ready to 
take the property at a thousand dollars. He sat 
dow^n and indulged in some figuring, then for a few 
moments was silent, then inquired if the ofier was a 
cash one, and when the money could be had. I re- 
plied, the moment his deed was ready for delivery. 

It was evident that the offer of instant payment 
determined him to sell at so low a price — cash w^as 
every thing. Opening his desk, he took out a deed 
for the property, ready to execute wdienever the 
grantee's name, the date and the consideration should 
have been inserted, handed it to me, and said he ac- 
cepted the offer, only let him have the money as 
quickly as possible. 

I confess to both exultation and surprise. I had 
secured an unmistakable bargain. The ready-made 
deed surprised me, but it showed the owner's neces- 
sities, and that he had been prepared to let the 
property go at the first decent offer. The natural 
selfishness of human nature has since induced me to 
believe that I could have bought for even less, had I 
not been so precipitate. His searches and brief of 
title were also ready ; a single day or . two was 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 39 

enough to bring tliem up — ^he liad been determined 
to sell. 

The transaction seemed to involve a succession of 
surprises. His turn for a new one came when he 
found that I had inserted my wife's name in the deed. 
So, paying him his thousand dollars, I returned with 
the deed to my wife, telling her that she had now a 
home of her own; that, come what might, the prop- 
erty was hers ; that the laws of 'New Jersey secured 
it to her, and that no subsequent destitution of mine 
could wrest it from her. This little act of considera- 
tion was as gratifying a surprise to her as any that 
either buyer or seller had experienced. If rejoiced 
at my having secured the place, it gave to it a new 
interest in her estimation, and fixed and made per- 
manent the attachment she had spontaneously ac- 
quired for it. Her gratification only served to 
mcrease my own. 

It is thus that small acts of kindness make life 
pleasant and desirable. Every dark object is made 
light by them, and many scalding tears of sorrow are 
thus easily brushed away. When the heart is sad, 
and despondency sits at the entrance of the soul, a 
little kindness drives despair away, and makes the 
path cheerful and pleasant. Who then will refuse a 
kind act ? It costs the giver nothing — just as this 
did ; but it is invaluable to the receiver. No broader 
acres, no more stately mansion, whether in town or 
country, could now tempt my wife to leave this hum- 
ble refuge. Here she has. been ever happy, and here, 
I doubt not, she will end her earthly career. 

In a week the house was vacated and cleansed, and 



40 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

we were in full possession. My wife was satisfied, 
my children were delighted, and I had realized the 
dream of twenty years ! One strong fact forced itself 
on my attention the first night I passed nnder my 
new roof. The drain of three hundred dollars per 
annum into the pocket of my city landlord had been 
stopped. My family received as safe a shelter for 
the interest of a thousand dollars, as he had given 
them for the interest of five thousand ! The feeling 
of relief from this unappeasable demand was inde- 
scribable. Curiously enough, my wife voluntarily 
suggested that the same feeling of relief had been 
presented to her. But in addition to this huge equiv- 
alent for the investment of a thousand dollars, there 
was that which might be hereafter realized from the 
cultivation of eleven acres of land. 

This lodgment was effected on the first of April, 
1855. When all our household fixings ha,d been 
snugly arranged, and I took my first walk over my 
little plantation, on a soft and balmy morning, my 
feeling of contentment seemed to be perfect. I knew 
that I was not rich, but it was certain that I was not 
poor. In contrasting my condition with that of 
others, both higher and lower upon fortune's ladder, 
I found a thousand causes for congratulation, but 
none for regret. With all his wealth, Rothschild must 
be satisfied with the same sky that was spread over 
me. He cannot order a private sunrise, that he may 
enjoy it with a select circle of friends, nor add a 
single glory to the gorgeous spectacle of the setting 
sun. The millionaire could not have more than his 
share of the pure atmosphere that I was breathing, 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 41 

wMle the poorest of all men could have as much. 
God only can give all these, and to many of the poor 
he has thus given. All that is most valuable can be 
had for nothing. They come as presents from the 
hand of an indulgent Father, and neither air nor sky, 
nor beauty, genius, health, or strength, can be bought 
or sold. Whatever may be one's condition in life, 
the great art is to learn to be content and happy, in- 
dulging in no feverish longings for what we have not, 
but satisfied and thankful for what w^e have. 



4:2 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



CHAPTEE YI. 

PLANTING A PEACH OECHAKD HOW TO PEESERVE 

PEACH-TREES. 

It was now the season for me to bustle about, fix 
np my land, and get in my crops. I examined it 
more carefully, walked over it daily, and made my- 
self thoroughly acquainted with it. As before men- 
tioned, it had been utterly neglected for a whole 
season, and was grown up with enormous weeds. 
These, after a day or two of drizzling rain, w^hen the 
seed-vessels were so wet as not to allow their con- 
tents to shatter out, I mowed off, gathered into sev- 
eral large heaps, and burned — thus getting rid of 
millions of pestiferous seeds. Then I purchased 
ploughs, including a subsoiler, a harrow, cultivator, 
and other tools. One acre of the whole was in 
clover, another was set aside as being occupied by 
the dAvelling-house, garden, stable, and barnyard ; 
but much the larger half of that acre was allowed 
for garden purposes. This left me just nine acres 
for general fruit and vegetable culture. I hired a 
man to plough them up, he finding his own team, 
and another to follow him in the furrow with my sub- 
soiler. The first went down ten inches, and tlie 
latter ten more. 

My neighbors were extremely kind with their sug- 
gestions. They had never seen such deep ploughing, 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 43 

and warned me not to turn up the old subsoil, and 
thus bring it to the surface. But thej were not 
book-farmers. 

Now, this business of deej) subsoil ploughing is a 
matter of indispensable value in all agriculture, but 
especially so in the planting of an orchard. 1:^0 tree 
can thrive as it ought to, unless the earth is thor- 
oughly and deeply loosened for the free expansion 
of the roots. If I could have ploughed two feet deep, 
it would have been all the better. In fact, the art of 
]3loughing is in its mere infancy in this country. Too 
many of us follow blindly in the beaten track. The 
first plough was a tough, forked stick, of which one 
prong served as a beam, while the other dug the 
earth as a coulter. Of course the ploughing was only 
scratching. It would have been preposterous to ex- 
pect the ploughman of Hesiod's or of Yirgil's time to 
turn up and mellow the soil to a depth of fifteen or 
sixteen inches. Down to the present age, ploughing 
was inevitably a shallow affair. But iron ploughs, 
steel ploughs, subsoil ploughs, have changed all this. 
It is as easy to-day to mellow the earth to the depth 
of two feet, as it was a century ago to turn over a 
sward to the depth of six inches. Besides, our fierce, 
trying climate, so different from the moist, milder 
one of England, Ireland, or even Holland, whence 
our ancestors emigrated, absolutely requires of us 
deep ploughing. Drought is our perpetual danger. 
Most crops are twenty to sixty per cent, short of 
what they would have, been witli adequate and sea- 
scmable moisture. That moisture exists not only in 
the skies above, but in the earth beneath our plants. 



44 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

Tliongh the skies may capriciously withhold it, the 
earth never will, if we provide a rich, mellow subsoil 
through which the roots can descend for moisture. 

The hotter and dryer the weather, the better our 
plants will grow, if they have rich, warm earth be- 
neath them, reaching down to and including moist- 
ure. We cannot, and we need not plough so very 
deep each year to assure this, if the subsoil is so un- 
derdrained that the suj^erabundant moisture of the 
wet season does not pack it. Underdraining as the 
foundation, and deep ploughing as the superstructure, 
with ample manuring and generous tillage, will se- 
cure us ample crops, such as any section of our coun- 
try has rarely seen. Om' corn should average sev- 
enty bushels per acre. Every field should be ready 
to grow wheat, if required. Every grass-lot should 
be good for three tons of hay per acre. Abundant 
fruits should gladden our fields and enrich our farm- 
ers' tables. So should our children no longer seek, 
in flight to crowded cities or the remote West, an 
escape from the ill-paid drudgery and intellectual 
barrenness of their fathers' lives, but find abun- 
dance and happiness in and around their childhood's 
happy homes. 

I laid out two hundred dollars in the purchase of 
old, well-rotted stable manure from the city, spread 
it over the ten acres, and ploughed up nine of them. 
I then set out my jjeach-trees on six acres, planting 
them in rows eighteen feet apart, and eighteen feet 
asunder in the rows. This accommodated a hun- 
dred and thirty-four to the acre, or eight hundred 
and four in all. These would not be in the way of 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 45 

any otlier crop, and in three years wonld be likely 
to yield a good return. The roots of every tree un- 
derwent a searching scrutiny before it was planted, 
to see that they harbored no members of that worm 
family which is so surely destructive of the peach. 
As trees are often delivered from the nursery with 
worms in them, so many of these were infected. The 
enemy was killed, and the butt of each tree was then 
swabbed with common tar, extending from where the 
roots begin to branch out, about twelve inches up. 
It is just about there, say between wind and water, 
at the surface of the ground, where the bark is soft, 
that in June and September the j^each-moth de- 
posits her eggs. From these is hatched the worm 
which kills the tree, unless picked out and destroyed. 

To perform this searching operation on a thousand 
trees every year, would be laborious and expensive. 
There would also be great danger of its being im- 
perfectly done, as many worms might escape the 
search, while the vital power of the tree would be 
seriously impaired by permitting them to prey upon 
its bark and juices even for a few months. Preven- 
tion would be far cheaper than curing. The offen- 
sive odor of the tar will cause the moth to shun the 
tree and to make her deposits somewhere else ; while 
if any chance to light upon it, they will stick to the 
tar and there perish, like flies upon a sheet of fly- 
j)aper. 

The tar was occasionally examined during the sea- 
son, to see that it kept soft and sticky ; and where 
any hardening was discovered, a fresh swabbing was 
applied. The whole operation was really one of 



46 TEN ACEE8 ENOUGH. 

very little trouble, while tlie result was highly re- 
munerative. Thoiightfiilness, industry, and a little 
tar, did the business effectually. I believe no nos- 
trum of putting ashes round the butt of a peach-tree 
to kill the worms, or any other nostrum of the kind, 
is worth a copj)er. The only sure remedy is preven- 
tion. Do not let the worms get in, and there will 
be no effort needed to get them out. 

I planted none but the rarest and choicest kinds. 
Economy of a few cents in the price of a tree is no 
economy at all. It is the hest fruit that sells the 
quickest and pays the highest profit. Yet there are 
still large quantities of fruit produced which is not 
worth taking to market. The best is cheaper for 
both buyer and seller. Hundreds of bushels of ap- 
ples and peaches are annually made into execrable 
pies in all the large cities, merely because they can 
be 23urchased at less cost than those of a better quality. 
But it is a mistaken economy with the buyer, as a 
mild, good-flavored peach or apple requires less sugar, 
and will then make a better pie. Many persons 
have a pride in, and attach too much consequence to a 
tree which sprung up spontaneously on their own 
farm, or perhaps which they have cultivated with 
some care; and then numbers of comparatively 
worthless seedlings occupy the places that should be 
improved by finer varieties, and which, if cultivated, 
would afford a greater profit. 

It is as easy to grow the choicest as the meanest 
fruit. I have a relative in Ohio who has a peach 
orchard of eleven acres, which has yielded him five 
thousand dollars in a single season, during which 



TEN AGUES ENOUGH. 47 

peaches were selling in Cincinnati at twenty-live 
cents a bushel. It is easy to understand that his 
orchard would not have produced him that sum at 
that price. l!^o, it did not. He received two dollars 
a bushel more readily than his neighbors got twenty- 
five cents for the same variety of peaches, and this is 
how he did it. When the peaches had grown as 
large as a hickory nut, he employed a large force 
and put oil one hundred and eighty-five days' work 
in picking off the excess of fruit. More than one- 
half of the fruit then upon the trees was carefully 
removed. Each limb was taken by hand, and where, 
within a space of eighteen inches, there would be 
probably twenty peaches, but six or seven of the 
fairest would be left to ripen. Thus, by carefully 
removing all but the strongest specimens, and thi'ow- 
ing all the vigor of the tree into them, the peaches 
ripen early, and are remarkable for size and excel- 
lence of quality. 

But this was labor ! Seven months' labor of one 
man in a small peach orchard ! But be it so — the 
net profit was between three and four thousand dol- 
lars. If he had neglected his trees, the owner's 
profits would have been a crop of peaches hardly fit 
to feed the pigs. I have profited largely by folloAV- 
ing his example, and will relate my own experience 
when the returns of my orchard come in. 

I intend to be particular touching my peach or- 
chard, as well for the gratification of my own pride, 
as an incentive to those who cannot be made to be- 
lieve Ten Acres Enough. My success with it has 
far outstripped my expectations ; and I pronounce a 



48 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

peach orchard of this size, planted and cultivated as 
it can be, and will be, by an intelligent man not 
essentially lazy, as the sheet anchor of his safety. 
I was careful to plant none but small trees, because 
such can be removed from the nursery with greater 
safety than large ones, while the roots are less multi- 
plied, and thus receive fewer injuries ; neither are they 
liable to be displaced by high winds before acquiring 
a firm foothold in the ground. Many persons sup- 
pose that newly planted trees should be large enough 
to be out of danger from cattle running among 
them ; but all cattle should be excluded from a young 
orchard. 

Moreover, small trees make a better growth, and 
are more easily trimmed into proper shape. All ex- 
perienced horticulturists testify to the superior eligi- 
bility of small trees. They cost less at the nursery, 
less in transportation, and very few fail to grow. 
One year old from the bud is old enough, and the 
same, generally, may be said of apples and pears. 
I dug holes for each tree three feet square and two 
feet deep, and filled in with a mixture of the sur- 
rounding top-soil and leached ashes, a half bnshel 
of the latter to each tree. Knowing that the peach- 
tree delights in ashes, I obtained four hundred bush- 
els from a city soap-works, and am satisfied they 
were exactly the manure my orchard needed. Every 
root which had been wounded by the spade in re- 
moving the tree from the nursery, was cut off just 
back of the wound, paring it smooth with a sharp 
knife. The fine earth was settled around the roots 
by pouring in water ; after which the mixture of earth 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 49 

and ashes was thrown on until the hole was filled. 



leaving a slight depression round the tree, to catch 
the rain, and the tree at about the same level it had 
maintained when standing in the nursery. 

I did not stake up the trees. Thej were too small 
to need it ; besides, I should be all the time on hand 
to keep them in position. Being a new-comer, I 
had no straw with which to mulch them, to retain 
the proper "moisture about the roots, or it would have 
been applied. But the season turned out to be abun- 
dantly showery, and they went on growing from the 
start. Not a tree was upset by storm or wind, nor 
did one of them die. I do not think the oldest 
nurseryman in the country could have been more 
successful. 

This operation made a heavj^ draft on the small 
cash capital which I possessed. But small as it was, 
it was large enough to show that capital is indispen- 
sable to successful farming. Had I been without it, 
my orchai'd would have been a mere hope, instead of 
a reality, and I might have been compelled to wait 
for years before feeling rich enough to establish it. 
But w^hen the work of planting was over, my satis- 
faction was extreme ; and when I saw the trees in 
full leaf, giving token that the work had been well 
done, I felt that I had not only learned but accom- 
plished much. I had been constantly on the ground 
while the planting was progressing — had seen for 
myself that every tree was cleared of worms — had 
held them up while the water and the earth and 
ashes had been thrown in and gently packed about 
the roots — and had given bo much attention in other 

3 



50 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

ways, as to feel sure that no part of the whole opera- 
tion had been neglected ; and hence I had a clear 
right to regard it as my own job. 

The cost of planting this orchard was as follows : 

804 trees at 7 cents $56.28 

Planting them 2 cents 16.08 

Ploughing and harrowing 20,00 

400 bushels oflashes 48.00 

Manure 200.00 

340.36 

I have unfairly saddled on the orchard the whole 
charge of two hundred dollars for manure, because it 
went to nourish other crops which the same ground 
produced. But let that go — the land was quite poor, 
needed all it got, and I had no faith in farming with- 
out manure. Had my purse been heavy enough, the 
quantity should have been trebled. 

As I am writing for the benefit of others, who, I 
hope, are not yet tired of peaches, let me add that 
this fruit will not succeed on ground where a previ- 
ous orchard has been recently grown ; neither can one 
be sure of getting healthy trees from any nurseryman 
who grows his on land from which he had recently 
produced a similar crop. The seed must be from 
healthy trees, and the buds from others equally free 
from disease. The peach, unless carefully watched 
and attended, is a short-lived tree. But it returns a 
generous income to a careful and generous grower. 
Of latter years the worm is its most formidable ene- 
my. But with those who think a good tree is as 
much worth being taken care of as a good horse. 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 51 

there will be neither doubt nor difficulty in keeping 
the destroyer out. 

Ten well-grown, bearing trees, which I found in 
the garden, were harboring a hundred and ninety 
worms among them when I undertook the work of 
extermination. " I bared the collar and roots of each 
tree as far as I could track a worm, and cut him out. 
I then scrubbed the whole exposed part with soap- 
suds and a regular scrubbing-brush ; after which I let 
them remain exposed for a week. If any worms had 
been overlooked, the chips thrown out by their opera- 
tions would be plainly visible on the clean surface at 
the week's end. Having tracked and cut out them 
also, I felt sure the enemy was exterminated, and 
covered up the roots, but first using the swab of com- 
mon tar, applying it all round the collar, and some 
distance up. 

These garden-trees were terribly scarified by the 
worms. But the cleaning out I gave them was 
eifectual. The soap-suds purged the injured parts of 
the unhealthy virus deposited by the worms, leaving 
them so nice and clean that the new bark began im- 
mediately to close over the cavities, and soon covered 
them entirely. I thus saved ten valuable bearing 
trees. Then I shortened in the long, straggling- 
branches, for the peach will certainly grow sprawl- 
ing out on every side, forming long branches which 
break down under the weight of a full crop at their 
extremities, unless the pruning-knife is freely used 
every season. All this was the work of less than a 
day, and shows that if peach-orchards perish after 
bearing only two or three crops, it may be attributed 



52 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

solely to mere neglect and laziness on the part of 
their owners. Thej plant trees, refuse to take care 
of them, and then complain if thej die early. The 
Avorld would soon be without pork, if all the pigs 
were as much neglected. These ten trees have never 
failed to produce me generous crops of luscious fruit. 
I cannot think of any investment which has paid me 
better than the slight labor annually required to keep 
them in good condition. 

I have tried with entire success two other methods 
of protecting peach-trees from the ravages of the 
worm. I have found gas-tar equally effectual with 
the common tar, and much more easily obtained. 
But care must be taken not to cover a height of more 
than four to six inches of the butt of the tree. If 
the w^hole stem from root to branch be covered, 
the tree will surely die. Another method is to in- 
close the butt in a jacket of pasteboard, or even thick 
hardware paper, keeping it in place with a string, 
and lowering it an inch or two below the ground, so 
as to prevent the fly having access to the soft part of 
the bark. These jackets will last two or three years, 
as they should be taken off at the approach of winter, 
to prevent them from becoming a harbor for insects. 
But they are an infallible preventive. I have re- 
cently procured a supply of the thick tarred felt 
which is used for making paper roofs, to be cut up 
and turned into jackets. This material will last for 
years, being water-proof, while the odor of the gas- 
tar in which it has been steeped is peculiarly offen- 
sive to the whole tribe of insects. 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 53 



CHAPTEE YII. 

PLANTINGS EASPBEEEIES AND STEAWBEKEIES TEICKS OF 

THE NUESEEY. 

My peacli-orchard was no sooner finished than I 
filled each row with raspberries, setting the roots two 
feet apart in the rows. This enabled me to get seven 
roots in between every two trees, or five thonsand six 
hnndred and fiftj-six in all. This was equivalent to 
nearly two acres wholly planted with raspberries ac- 
cording to the usnal plan. They would go on grow- 
ing without injuring the peach-trees, or being injured 
by them ; and when the latter should reach their full 
growth, their shade would be highly beneficial to the 
raspberries, as they thrive better and bear more freely 
when half protected from the burning sun. The 
tops were cut off within a few inches of the ground, 
thus preventing any excessive draft upon the newly 
planted roots. ISTo staking up was needed. These 
roots cost me six dollars per thousand, or thirty-four 
dollars for the lot, and were the ordinary Eed Ant- 
werp. The season proving showery, they grew finely. 
Some few died, but my general luck was very satis- 
factory. I planted the whole lot in three days with 
my own hands. 

I am sure the growth of my raspberries was owing, 
in a great degree, to the deep ploughing the land had 
received. The soil they delight in is one combinmg 



54 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

richness, depth, and moisture. It is only from such 
that a full crop may be expected every season. Tlie 
roots must have abundance of elbow-room to run 
down and suck up moisture from the abundant reser- 
voir which exists below. Deep ploughing will save 
them from the effects of dry weather, which other- 
wise will blast the grower's hopes, giving him a small 
berry, shrivelled up from want of moisture, instead 
of one of ample size, rich, and juicy. Hence irriga- 
tion has been known to double the size of raspberries, 
as well as doubling the growth of the canes in a 
single season. Mulching also is a capital thing. 
One row so treated, by way of experiment, showed 
a marked improvement over all the others, besides 
keeping down the weeds. 

As a market fruit the raspberry stands on the same 
list with the best, and I am satisfied that one cannot 
produce too much. For this purpose I consider the 
Red Antwerp most admirably adapted. There are 
twenty other varieties, some of which are probably 
quite as valuable, but I was unwilling to have my at- 
tention divided among many sorts. One really good 
berry was enough for me. Some of my neighbors 
have as much as ten acres in this fruit, from which 
they realize prodigious profits. Like all the smaller 
fruits, it yields a quick return to an industrious and 
pains-taking cultivator. 

Immediately on getting my raspberries in, I went 
twice over the six acres w^ith the cultivator, stirring 
up the ground some four inches deej), as it had been 
a good deal trampled down by our planting opera- 
tions. This I did myself, with a thirty-dollar horse 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. .00 

wliicli I had recently bought. Having eighteen feet 
between two rows of peach-trees, I divided this space 
into five rows for strawberries, giving me very nearly' 
three feet between each row. In these rows I set the 
strawberry plants, one foot apart, making about 
10,000 plants per acre, allowing for the headlands. 
I bought the whole 60,000 required for $2 per thou- 
sand, making $120. This was below the market 
price. 

In planting these I got three of the children to 
help me, and though it was more tiresome work than 
they had ever been accustomed to, yet they stood 
bravely up to it. Every noon we four went home 
with raging appetites for dinner, where the plain but 
well-cooked fare provided by my wdfe and eldest 
daughter — for she kept no servant — ^vas devoured 
with genuine country relish. The exercise in the 
open air for the whole week which it took us to get 
through this job did us all a vast amount of good. 
Eoses came into the cheeks of my daughters, to w^hich 
the cheeks aforesaid had been strangers in the city ; 
and it was the general remark among us at breakfast, 
that it had never felt so good to get to bed the night 
before. Thus honest labor brought wholesome appe- 
tites and sound repose. Most of us complained of 
joints a little stiffened by so much stooping, but an 
hour's exercise at more stooping made us limber for 
the remainder of the day. 

It occupied us a whole week to set out these plants, 

▼for we were all new hands at the business. But the 

work was carefully done, and a shower coming on 

just as we had finished, it settled the earth nicely to 



56 TEN ACRES ENOUG-H. 

tlie roots, and I do not think more than two hundred 
of them died. I intended to put a pinch of guano 
compost or a handful of poudrette into each hill, but 
thought I could not aiford it, and so let them go, 
trusting to being able to give them a dressing of some 
kind of manure the following spring. I much re- 
gretted this omission, as I was fully aware of the 
great value of the best strawberries, and plenty of 
them. My wife thought at first that six acres was an 
enormous quantity to have — inquired if I expected 
to feed the family on strawberries, and whether it 
was not worth while to set about Taising some sugar 
to go with them, feeling certain that a great deal of 
that would be wanted. 

I forgot to say that I had planted Wilson's Albany 
Seedling. This was the berry for which ^ve had been 
compelled to pay such high prices while living in the 
city. Everybody testified to its being the most pro- 
fuse bearer, while its great size and handsome shape 
made it eagerly sought after in the market. It was 
admitted, all things considered, to be the best market 
berry then known. My experience has confirmed 
this. True, it is a little tarter than most other varie- 
ties, and therefore requires more sugar to make it 
palatable ; but this objection is more theoretical than 
practical, as I always noticed that when the berries 
came upon the table, while living in the city, we con- 
tinued to pile on the sugar, no matter what the price 
or quantity. The berries were there, and must be 
eaten. ^ 

On one occasion, on repeating this observation to 
my wife, she admitted, having noticed the same re- 



TEN ACRES ENOrGH. 5T 

markable fact, and added that slie believed strawber- 
ries would continue to be eaten, even if each quart 
required a pound of sugar to sweeten it. She de- 
clared that for her part, she and the children intended 
to do so in future. 

'Now, although she was extravagantly fond of 
strawberries, and had brought up our children in the 
same faith, this threat did not alarm me, for I knew 
that hereafter our berries would cost me nothing, and 
that if they devoured them too freely, sugar included, 
a slight pain under the apron of some of them would 
be likely to moderate their infatuation. I then sug- 
gested to her, how would it do — whether it v^'ould not 
make our estabhshment immensely popular — if in 
selling my berries, wdien the crop came in next year, 
to announce to the public that we would throw the 
sugar in ? She looked at me a moment, and must 
have suspected that I was quizzing her ; for she got 
up and left the room, saying she must go into the 
kitchen, as she heard the tea-kettle boiling over. But 
though I waited a full half hour, yet she did not re- 
turn. 

The reader may have been all this time watching 
the condition of my purse. But he has not been so 
observant as myself. These plants did not cost me 
cash. I had intended to plant an acre or two to be- 
gin wuth. But after buying my peach-trees and rasp- 
berries, the nurseryman inquired if I did not intend 
to plant straw^berries also, as he had a very large 
^ quantity which he would sell cheap. His saying that 
he had a very large lot, and that he would sell them 
cheap, seemed to imply that he found a difficulty in 



68 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

disposing of them. Besides, -tlie selling season was 
pretty nearly over. I therefore fought shy, and 
merely inquired his terms. This led to a long collo- 
quy between us, in the course of which I held off 
just in proportion as lie became urgent. At last, be- 
lieving that I was not disposed to buy, although I 
went there for that very purpose, he offered to sell 
me 60,000 plants for $120, and to take his money out 
of the proceeds of my first crop. This offer I consid- 
ered fair enough, much better than I expected ; and 
after having distinctly agreed that he should depend 
upon the crop, and not on me, for payment, and that 
if the coming season yielded nothing he should w^ait 
for the following one, I confessed to him that his per- 
suasions had overcome me, and consented to the bar- 
gain. 

In other words, I did not run in debt — I saved just 
that much of my capital, and could make a magnifi- 
cent beginning with our favorite fruit. As I was 
leaving this liberal man, he observed to me : 

" Well, I am glad you have taken this lot, as I was 
intending to plough them in to-morrow." 

"How is that?" I inquired, not exactly under- 
standing his meaning. 

" Oh," said he, " I have so many now that I must 
have the ground for other purposes, and so meant to 
plough them under if you had not bought them." 

This w^as an entirely new wrinkle to me, and fully 
explained why he could afford to farm them out on 
the conditions referred to. Though a capital bargain 
for me, yet it was a still better one for him. What 
he was to receive was absolutely so much clear gain. 



TEN ACRES KNOUGH. 



59 



But tlien, after all that has been said and written, is 
it not a truth that cannot be disputed, that no bar- 
gain can be pronounced a good one unless all the 
parties to it are in some way benefited 1 

Here, now, were six acres of ground pretty well 
crowded up, at least on paper. But the strawberries 
would never grow higher than six inches ; the rasp- 
berries would be kept down to three or four feet, 
while the peaches would overtop all. Each would 
be certain to keep out of the other's way. Then look 
at the succession. The strawberries would be in 
market first, the raspberries would follow, and then 
the peaches, for of the latter I had planted the earli- 
est sorts ; so that, unlike a farm devoted wholly to 
the raising of grain, which comes into market only 
once a year, I should have one cash-producmg crop 
succeeding to another during most of the summer. 
On the remaining three acres I meant to raise some- 
thing which would bring money in the autumn, so as 
to keep me flush all the time. You may say that 
this was reckoning my chickens before they were 
hatched; but you will please remember that thus far 
I have not even mentioned chickens, and I pray that 
you will be equally considerate. I know, at least I 
have some indistinct recollection of having heard that 
the proof of the pudding lay in the eating. But pray 
be patient, even credulous, until the aforesaid myth- 
ical pudding is served up. I am now cooking it, and 
you ought all to know that cooks must not be hur- 
ried. In good time it will come smokmg on the 
table. 



60 TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 



CHAPTEE YIII. 

BLACKBEKEIES A EEMARKABLE COINCIDENCE. 

In the course of mj agricultural reading for some 
years previous to coming into tlie country, I had no- 
ticed great things said of a new blackberry which 
had been discovered in the State of 'New York. The 
stories printed in relation to it were almost fabulous. 
It was represented as growing twenty feet high, and 
as bearing berries nearly as large as a walnut, which 
melted on the tongue with a lusciousness to which 
the softest ice-cream was a mere circumstance, while 
the fruit was said to be strung upon its branches like 
onions on. a rope. A single bush would supply a, 
large family with fruit ! I was amazed at the ex- 
travagant accounts given of its unexampled product- 
iveness and matchless flavor. I had supposed that I 
Iniew all about blackberries, but here was a great 
marvel in a department which had been proverbially 
free from eccentricities of that kind. 

But I followed it — in the papers — for a long time. 
At last I saw it stated that the rare plant could not 
be propagated from the seed, but only from suckers, 
and therefore very slowly. Of course it could not be 
afforded for less than a dollar apiece ! It would be 
unreasonable to look for blackberries for less! It 
struck me that the superior flavor claimed for it must 
be a little of the silvery order — that in berries bought 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. Gl 

at that price, a touch might be detected eyen of the 
most auriferous fragrance. Still, I was an amateur 
— in a small way. I rejoiced in a city garden which 
would readily accommodate a hundred of this extra- 
ordinary berry, especially as it was said to do better 
and bear more fruit, when cut down to four feet, in- 
stead of being allowed to grow to a height of twenty. 

It thus seemed to be made for such miniature gar- 
deners as" myself. One generous advertiser offered 
to send six roots by mail for five dollars, ]3i"ovided 
ten red stamps were inclosed with the money. I had 
never before heard of blackberries being sent by 
mail ; but the whole thing was recommended by men 
in whose standing all confidence could be placed, 
and who, as far as could be discovered, had no plants 
to sell. Under such circumstances, doubt seemed to 
be absurd. 

I sent five dollars and the stamps. But this was 
one of the secrets I never told my wife until she had 
eaten the first bowlful of the fully ripened fruit, 
eighteen months afterwards. Well, the plants 'came 
in a letter — mere fibres of a greater root — certainly 
not thicker than a thin quill, not one of them having 
a top. They looked like long white worms, with here 
and there a bud or eye. I never saw, until then, what 
I considered the meanest five dollars' worth of any 
thing I had ever bought ; and when my wife inquired 
what those things w^ere I was planting, I replied that 
they were little vegetable wonders which a distant 
correspondent had sent me. IsTot dreaming that they 
cost me near a dollar apiece, at the very time I owed 
a quarter's rent, she dropped the subject. 



62 TP^N ACEES ENOUGH, 

But I planted tliem in a deeply spaded and rich 
sunny border, deluged them every week with suds 
from the family wash, and by the close of the season 
they had sent up more than a -dozen strong canes 
which stood six feet high. The next summer they 
bore a crop of fruit which astonished me. From the 
group of bushes I picked fifteen quarts , of berries 
superior to any thing of the kind we had ever eaten. 
I then confided the secret to my wife : she considered 
the plants cheap at five dollars, and pronounced my 
venture a good one. 1 think we had more than -Qye 
dollars' worth of satisfaction in showing them to our 
friends and neighbors. "We gave away some pints 
of the fruit, and such was its fame and popularity, 
that I feel convinced we could have readily disposed 
of it all in the same way. 

One of the reporters for a penny-paper hearing of 
the matter, called in my absence to see them. My 
wife politely acted as showman, and being very elo- 
quent of speech on any matter which happens to 
strike her fanc}^, she was quite as communicative as 
he desired. She did not know that the fellow was a 
penny-a-liner, whose vocation it was to magnify an 
ant-hill into a mountain. To her extreme consterna- 
tion, as well as to mine, the next morning's paper 
contained a half-column article describing my black- 
berries, even giving my name and the number of the 
house. By ten o'clock that day the latter was run 
down with strangers, who had thus been publicly in- 
vited to call and see the new blackberry. Our 
opposite neighbors laughed heartily over my wife's 
vexation, and for the first time in my life I saw her 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 63 

almost imnxovable good temper give way. The nui- 
sance continued for weeks, as tlie vile article had been 
copied into some of the neighboring country pape s, 
and thus new sw^arms of bores were inflamed with 
curiosity. This little vexatious circumstance afforded 
unmistakable evidence of the great interest taken by 
the public in the discovery of a new and valuable 
fruit. I could have disposed of thousands of plants 
if I had had them for sale. 

This was the l^ew Kochelle or Lawton Blackberry. 
The numerous suckers which came up around each 
root I transplanted along my border, until I had 
more than two hundred of them. This was long be- 
fore a single berry had been offered for sale in the 
Philadelphia market, though the papers told me that 
the fruit was selling in New York at half a dollar 
per quart, and that the great consuming public of 
that city, having once tasted of it, was clamorous for 
more. I am constrained to say that the nurserymen 
who had these plants to sell did not over praise 
them. This berry has fully realized all they promised 
in relation to it ; and a debt of thankfulness is owing 
to the men who first discovered and caused it to be 
propagated. It has taken its place in public estima- 
tion beside the strawberry and raspberry, and will 
henceforth continue to be a favorite in every market 
where it may become known. 

This extraordinary fruit was first noticed in 1834, 
by Mr. Lewis A. Secor, of l^ew Rochelle, New York, 
who observed a single bush growing wild in an open 
field, but loaded with astonishing clusters of larger 
berries than he had ever seen, and of superior rich- 



64 TEN ACEES EIrTOUGH. 

ness of flavor. At the proper season lie removed the 
plant to his garden, where he continued to propagate 
it for several years, during which time it won the 
unqualified admiration of all who had an oj^portu- 
nity of either seeing or tasting the fruit. JSTumerous 
plants were distributed, and its propagation in pri- 
vate gardens and nurseries began. A quantity of 
the fruit being exhibited at the Farmers' Club, by 
Mr. William Lawton, the club named it after him, 
leaving the discoverer unrecognized. 

Great sums of money have been made by propa- 
gators of this berry. It possesses peculiar merits in the 
estimation of market gardeners. It ripens just as the 
supply of strawberries and rasj)berries has been ex- 
hausted, and before peaches and grapes have made 
their appearance, filling with delicious fruit a horticul- 
tural vacuum which had long existed. Its mammoth 
size and luscious qualities insure for it the highest 
prices, and it has steadily maintained its original char- 
acter. It pays the grower enormously, is a sure bearer, 
is never touched by frost or attacked by insect enemies, 
and when well manured and staked up from the 
wind, and cut down to four feet high, with the limbs 
shortened to a foot, will readily produce two thou- 
sand quarts to the acre. Some growers have greatly 
exceeded this quantity. I have known a single 
plant to yield eighteen hundred berries, and three 
plants to produce sixteen quarts. Its flavor is en- 
tirely difierent from that of the common wild black- 
berry, while it abounds in juice, and contains no 
core. It is evidently a distinct variety. It has also 
long been famous for yielding a most superior wine. 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 65 

When I went into the country I had two hnndred 
of the Lawton bhickberry to plant, all which were 
the product of my five-dollar venture. In digging 
them up from my city garden, every inch of root 
that could be found was carefully hunted out. They 
had multiplied under ground to a surprising extent 
—some of them being as much as twenty feet in 
length. These roots were full of buds from which 
new canes would spring. Their vitality is almost un- 
conquerable — everybody knows a bhickberry is the 
hardest thing in the world to kill. I cut off the 
canes six inches above the root, then divided each 
stool into separate roots, and then cutting up the 
long roots into slips containing one to two eyes each, 
I found my number of sets to exceed a thousand, 
Oj^uite enough to plant an acre. 

These I put. out in rows eight feet apart, and eight 
feet asunder in the rows. Not ten of them died, as 
they came fresh out of the ground in one place, only 
to be immediately covered up some three inches deep 
in another. Thus this whole five-dollar speculation 
was one of the luckiest hits I ever made ; because I 
began early, before the plant had passed into every- 
body's hands ; and when it came into general demand, 
I was the only grower near the city who had more 
than a dozen plants. Yery soon everybody wanted 
the fruit, and the whole neighborhood wanted the 
plants. How I condescended to sux3ply both classes 
of customers will appear hereafter. 

Yet, while setting out these roots, several of my 
neighbors, as usual when I was doing any thing, came 
to oversee me. On former occasions they had ex- 



66 TEN ACRE^ ENOUGH. 

pressed considerable incredulity as to my operations ; 
and it was easy to see from their remarks and in- 
quiries now, that they thought I didn't know much, 
and would have nothing for my labor but my pains. 
I always listened good-humoredly to their remarks, 
because I discovered that now and then they let fall 
something which was of real value to me. When 
they discovered it was blackberries I was planting, 
some of them laughed outright. But I replied that 
this Lawton berry was a new variety, superior to 
any thing known, and an incredible bearer. They 
answered me they could find better ones in any fence 
corner in the township, and that if I once got them 
mto my ground I could never get them out. It 
struck me the last remark would also apply as justly 
to my peach-trees. 

But I contented myself with saying that I should 
never want to get them out, and that the time would 
Come when they would all want the same thing in 
their own ground. Thus it is that pioneers in any 
thing are generally ridiculed and discouraged by the 
general multitude. Of all my visitors, only two ap- 
peared to have any correct knowledge of the new 
plant. They offered to buy part of my stock ; but on 
refusing to sell, they engaged to take some in the 
autumn. 

I have been thus particular in writing of the Law- 
ton, because of my singular success with it from the 
start. I thus occupied my seventh acre ; but the 
rows being eight feet apart, abundant room was left 
to raise a crop of some kind between them. Even 
in the rows, between the roots, I planted corn, which 



TEN ACRES EXOUGII. 67 

grew well, and afforded a most beneficial shade to 
the young blackberries as they grew np. I am sat- 
isfied they flourished better for being thns pro- 
tected the first season from the hot snn. When in 
full maturity, they need all the sun they can get. 
They will grow and flourish in almost any soil in 
which they once become well rooted, though they are 
rank feeders on manure. Like a young pig, feed 
them well and they will grow to an astonishing size : 
starve them, and your crops will be mere runts. 
It is from the same skinning practice that so many 
corn-cribs are seen to abound in nubbins. 

I had thus two acres left unoccupied ; one acre, as 
previously stated, was most fortunately in clover. 
On this I put four bushels of ground plaster mixed 
with a sprinkling of guano, the two costing me only 
five dollars. I afterwards devoted an acre to toma- 
toes, and the last to parsnips, cabbages, turnips, and 
sweet corn. This latter was scattered in rows or 
drills three feet apart, intending it for green fodder 
for the horse and cow when the clover gave out. 
The turnips were sowed between the corn-rows, and 
were intended for winter feeding for horse and cow. 
On the acre of blackberries, between the rows, I 
planted cabbage, putting into each hill a spoonful of 
mixed plaster and guano, and wherever I could find 
vacant spots about the place, there also a cabbage 
plant was set out. A few pumpkin hills were started 
in suitable places. In fact, my effort was to occupy 
every inch of ground with something. The cabbage 
and tomato plants cost me thirty dollars. 

These several crops were put in as the season for 



68 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

eacli one came round. The green-corn crop was not 
all put in at one time, bnt at intervals abont two weeks 
apart, so that I should have a succession of succulent 
food during the summer. The horse and cow were 
to be kept in the barnyard, as I had no faith in turn- 
ing cattle out to pasture, thus requiring three times 
as much land as was necessary, besides losing half 
the manure. The latter was a sort of hobby with 
me. I was determined to give my crops all they 
could profitably appropriate, and so soil my little 
stock ; that is, keep them in the barnyard in summer, 
and in the stable in winter, while their food was to 
be brought to them, instead of their being forced to 
go after it. I knew it would cost time and trouble ; 
but I have long since discovered that most things ot 
value in this world come to us only as the result of 
diligent, unremitted labor. The man, even upon ten 
acres, who is content to see around him only barren 
fields, scanty crops, and lean, starving animals, does 
not deserve the name of farmer. Unless he can de- 
vise ways and means for changing such a condition 
of things, and cease ridiculing all propositions of 
amendment that may be pointed out to him, he had 
better be up and off, and give place to a live man. 
Such skinning and exhausting tillage is one cause of 
the annual relative decline of the wheat-crop all over 
the Union, and of the frequent changes in the owner- 
ship of lands. The fragrance of a fat and ample 
manure heap is as grateful to the nostrils of a good 
farmer, as the fumes of the tavern are notoriously 
attractive to those of a poor one. 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 69 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE GAEDEN FEilALE MANAGEMENT — COMFOETS AND 

PEOFITS. 

I MENTIONED some time ago that the wife of the 
former owner of this place had left it Avith a world 
of regrets. She had been passionately fond of the 
garden which now fell to ns. As daylight can be 
seen through very small holes, so little things will 
illustrate a person's character. Indeed, character 
consists in little acts, and honorably performed ; daily 
life being the quarry from which we build it up and 
rough-hew the habits that form it. The garden she 
had prepared, and cultivated for several years, doing 
much of the work of planting, watching, watering, 
and training with her own hands, bore honorable 
testimony to the goodness of hers. She had filled it 
with the choicest fruit-trees, most of which were now 
in full bearing. There was abundance of all the 
usual garden fruits, currants, gooseberries, grapes, and 
an ample asparagus bed. It was laid out with taste, 
convenience, and liberality. Flowers, of course, had 
not been omitted by such a woman. Her vocation 
had evidently been something beyond that of merely 
cooking her husband's dinners. But her garden bore 
marks of long abandonment. Great weeds were 
rioting in the borders, grass had taken foothold in 
the alleys, and it stood in need of a new mistress to 



70 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

work up into profitable use the store of riches it con- 
tained. It struck me that if one woman could es- 
tablish a garden like this, I could find another on my 
own premises to manage it. 

After I had got through with the various plantings 
of mj standard fruits — indeed, while much of it was 
going on — I took resolute hold of the garden. It was 
large enough to provide vegetables for three families. 
I meant to make it sure for one. With all the lights 
and improvements of modem times, and they are 
many, three-fourths of the farm gardens in our coun- 
try are still a disgrace to our husbandry. As a rule, 
the most easily raised vegetables are not to be found 
in them ; and the small fruits, with the exception of 
currants and gooseberries, are universally neglected. 
Many of our farmers have never tasted an early York 
cabbage. If they get cabbages or potatoes by Au- 
gust, they think they are doing pretty well. They 
do not understand the simple mysteries of a hot-bed, 
and so force nothing. ITow, with this article, which 
need not cost five dollars, and which a boy of ten 
years can manage, you can have cabbages and pota- 
toes in June, and beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, and 
squashes, and a host of other delicious vegetables, a 
little later. 

By selecting your seed, you can have salad, green 
peas, onions, and beets by the last of June, or before, 
without any forcing. A good asparagus bed, cover- 
ing two square rods of ground, is a luxury that no 
farmer should be without. It will give him a palata- 
ble dish, green and succulent from the bosom of the 
earth every day, from May to July. A good variety 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 71 

of vegetables is within the reach of every fanner the 
year round. They are not only an important means 
of supporting the family, paying at least one-half the 
table expenses, but they are greatly conducive to 
health. They relieve the terrible monotony of salt 
junk, and in the warm season prevent the fevers and 
bowel complaints so often induced by too much ani- 
mal food. 

Neglect is thus too much the rule. A row of 
currants, for example, is planted in a garden. It 
will indeed bear well with neglect ; but an annual 
manuring and thinning out of old wood, would at 
least triple the size of the fruit, and improve its 
quality. The row of currants will furnish a daily 
supply of refreshing fruit to the table for months 
together. Why should its culture then be totally 
neglected, when a row of corn by its side of equal 
length, which will supply only a single feeding to a pen 
of hogs, is most carefully manured, watched, ploughed, 
and hoed? I have sometimes seen farmers who, 
after expending large sums in establishing a young 
orchard of trees, would destroy one-half by choking 
them with a crop of oats or clover, because they could 
not afford to lose the use of the small strip of land a 
few feet wide in the row, which ought to have been 
kept clean and cultivated. I 

I began by deepening the garden soil wherever a 
spade could be put in. I hired a man for this pur- 
pose, and paid him ten dollars for the job, including 
the hauling and digging in of the great pile of ma- 
nure I had found in the barnyard, and the clearing 
up of things generally. I would have laid out fifty 



T2 TEN ACKE6 ENOUGH. 

dollars in manure, if the money could have been 
spared ; but what I did afforded an excellent return. 
My wife and eldest daughter, Kate, then in her eigh- 
teenth year, did all the planting. I spent '^ve dol- 
lars in buying for them a complete outfit of hoes, 
rakes, and trowels for garden use, lightly made on 
purpose for female handling, with a neat little wheel- 
barrow to hold the weeds and litter which I felt 
pretty sure would have to be hoed up and trundled 
away before the season was over. 

They took to the garden manfully. I kept their 
hoes constantly sharpened with a file, and they de- 
clared it was only pastime to wage warfare on the 
weeds with weapons so keen. J^ow and then one of 
the boys went in to give them a lift ; and when a new 
vegetable bed was to be planted, it was dug up and 
made ready for them. But the great bulk of all other 
work was done by themselves. 

J^ever has either of them enjoyed health so robust, 
or appetites so wholesome. As a whole year's crop 
of weeds had gone to seed, they had millions of the 
enemy to contend with, just as I had anticipated. I 
did not volunteer discouragements by repeating to 
them the old English formula, that 

" One year's seeding 
Makes seven years' weeding/* 

but commended their industry, exhorted them to 
persevere, and was lavish in my admiration of the 
handsome style in which they kept the grounds. I 
infused into their minds a perfect hatred of the whole 
tribe of weeds, enjoined it upon them not to let a 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



Y3 



single one escape and go to seed, and promised tliem 
that if tliey tlins exterminated all, the next year's 
weeding would be mere recreation. 

I will say for them, that all our visitors from the 
city were sm-prised at seeing the garden so free from 
w^eeds, while they did not fail to notice that most of 
the vegetables were extremely thrifty. They did not 
know that in gardens where the weeds thrive undis- 
turbed, the vegetables never do. As to* the neigh- 
bors, they came in occasionally to see what the 
women were doing, but shook their heads when they 
saw they were merely hoeing up weeds — said that 
weeds did no harm, and they might as well attempt 
to kill all the flies— they had been brdffght up among 
weeds, knew all about them, and " it was no use try- 
ing to get rid of them." 

But the work of weeding kept on through the 
whole season, and as a consequence, the ground about 
the vegetables was kept constantly stirred. The 
result of this thorough culture was, that nearly every 
thing seemed to feel it, and the growth was pro- 
digious, far exceeding what the family could con- 
sume. We had every thing we needed, and in far 
greater abundance than we ever had in the city. I 
am satisfied this profusion of vegetables lessened the 
consmnption of meat in the family one-half. Indeed, 
it was such, that my wife suggested that the garden 
had so much more in it than we required, that per- 
haps it would be as well to send the surplus to the 
store where we usually bought our groceries, to be 
there sold for our benefit. 

The town within half a mile of us contained some 
4 



74: TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

Hve thousand inhabitants, among whom there was a 
daily demand for vegetables. I took my wife's advice, 
ai]d from time to time gathered such as she directed, 
for she and Kate w^ere sole mistresses of the garden, 
and sent them to the store. They kept a regular 
book-account of these consignments, and when we 
came to settle up with the storekeeper at the year's 
end, w^ere surprised to find that he had eighty dol- 
lars to our credit. But this was not all from vegeta- 
bles — a good deal of it came from the fruit-trees. 

After using in the family great quantities of 
fine peaches from the ten garden-trees, certainly three 
times as many as we could ever afford to buy when in 
the city, the rest w^ent to the store. The trees had 
been so hackled by the worms that they did not bear 
full crops, yet the yield was considerable. Then 
there were quantities of spare currants, gooseberries, 
and several bushels of common blue plums, which the 
curculio does not sting. When my wife discovered 
there was so ready a market at our own door, she 
suffered nothing to go to waste. It w^as a new fea- 
ture in her experience — every thing seemed to sell. 
Whenever she needed n new dress for herself or any 
of the children, all she had to do was to go to the 
store, get it, and have it charged against her garden 
fund. I confess that her success greatly exceeded 
my expectations. 

Let me now put in a word as to the cause of this 
success with our garden. It was not owing to our 
knowledge of gardening, for w^e made many blunders 
not here recorded, and lost crops of two or three 
different things in consequence. Neither was it 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



75 



owing to excessive ricliiiess of tlie ground. But I 
lay it to the unsparing warfare kept up upon the 
weeds, which thus prevented their running away 
with the nourishment intended for the plants, and 
kept the ground constantly stirred up and thoroughly 
pulverized. I have sometimes thought one good 
stirring up, whether with the hoe, the rake, or the 
cultivator, was as beneficial as a good shower. 

When vegetables begin to look parched and the 
ground becomes dry, some gardeners think they must 
commence the use of the watering-pot. This prac- 
tice, to a certain extent, and under some circum- 
stances, may perhaps be proper, but as a general rule 
it is incorrect. The same time spent in hoeing, fre- 
quently stirring the earth about vegetables, is far 
preferable. When watering has once commenced it 
must be continued, must be followed up, else you 
have done mischief instead of good ; as, after water- 
ing a few times, and then omitting it,ihe ground will 
bake harder than if nothing had been done to it. 
Not so with hoeing or raking. The more you stir 
the ground about vegetables, the better they are 
off ; and whenever you stop hoeing, no damage is 
done, as in watering. Yegetables will improve 
more rapidly, be more healthy, and in better condi- 
tion at maturity, by frequent hoeing than by frequent 
watering. This result is very easily shown by ex- 
periment. Just notice, after a dewy night, the dif- 
ference between ground lately and often stirred, and 
that which has lain unmoved for along time. Or 
take two cabbage plants under similar circumstances ; 
water one and stir the other just as often, stirring 



76 TEN ACKE8 ENOUGH. 

the earth about it carefully and thoroughly, and see 
which will distance the other in growth. 

There are secrets about this stirrino; of the earth 
which chemists and horticulturists would do well 
to study with the utmost scrutiny and care. Soil 
cultivated in the spring, and then neglected, soon set- 
tles together. The surface becomes hard, the parti- 
cles cohere, they attract little or no moisture, and 
from such a surface even the rain slides off, appar- 
ently doing little good. But let this surface be 
thoroughly pulverized, though it be done merely with 
an iron rake, and only a few inches in depth, and a 
new life is infused into it. The surface becomes 
friable and soft, the moisture of the particles again 
becomes active, attracting and being attracted, each 
seeming to be crying to his neighbor, " Hand over, 
hand over — more drink, more drink." Why this 
elaboration should grow less and less, till in a com- 
paratively short time it should seem almost to cease, 
is a question of very difficult solution ; though the 
varying compositions of soils has doubtless something 
to do with the matter. 

But let the stirring be carefully repeated, and all is 
life again. Particles attract moisture from the at- 
mosphere, hand it to each other, down it goes to the 
roots of vegetables, the little suction fibres drink it 
in ; and though we cannot see these busy operations, 
yet we perceive their healthy effects in the pushing 
up of vegetables above the surface. The hoe is bet- 
ter than the water-pot. My garden is a signal illus- 
tration of the fact. 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 77 



CHAPTEK X. 

CHEATED IN A COW A GOOD AND A BAD ONE — THE 

SAINT OF THE BAENYAED. 

Both myself and wife had always coveted a cow. 
All of the family were extravagantly fond of milk. 
Where so many children were about, it seemed 
indispensable to have one; besides, were we not 
upon a farm? and what would a farm be without 
having upon it at least one saint of the barnyard ? 
As soon as we came on the place, I made inquiries 
of two or three persons for a cow. The news flew 
round the neighborhood with amazing rapidity, and 
in the course of two weeks I was besieged with ofl:ers. 
They liaunted me in the street, as I went daily to the 
post-office ; even in the evening, as we sat in our par- 
lor. It seemed as if everybody in the township had 
a cow to sell. Indeed, the annoyance continued long 
after we had been supplied. 

N^ow, though I knew a great deal of milk, having 
learned to like it the very day I was born, yet I was 
utterly ignorant of how^ to choose a cow, and at that 
time had no friend to advise with. But I suspected 
that no one who had a first-rate animal would volun- 
tarily part with it, and so expected to be cheated. I 
hinted as much to my wife, whereupon she begged 
that the choice might be left to her ; to Avhich I par- 
tially consented, thinking that if we should be im- 



78 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

posed on, I should feel better if the imposition could 
be made chargeable somewhere else than to my own 
ignorance. Besides, I knew that she could hardly be 
worse cheated than myself. 

One morning a very respectable-looking old man 
drove a cow up to the door, and called us out to look 
at her. My wife was pleased with her looks the mo- 
ment she set eyes on her, while the children were 
delighted with the calf, some two weeks old. I did 
not like her movements — she seemed restless and ill- 
tempered ; but the old man said that was always the 
way with cows at their first calving. Still, I should 
not have bought her. But somehow my wife seemed 
bewitched in her favor, and was determined to have 
her. This the old man could not fail to notice, and was 
loud in extolling her good qualities, declaring that 
she would give twenty quarts of milk a day. After 
some further parley, he inadvertently admitted that 
she had never been milked. My wife did not notice 
this striking discrepancy of a cow giving twenty 
quarts daily, when a,s yet no one had ever milked 
her ; but the lie was too bouncing a one to escape my 
notice. As I saw my wife had set her heart upon 
the cow, I said nothing, and finally bought cow and 
calf for thirty dollars, though quite certain they could 
have been had for five dollars less, if my wife had not 
so plainly shown to the old sinner that she was de- 
termined to have them. I do not think she will ever 
be up to me in making a bargain. But as it had 
been agreed that she should choose a cow, so she was 
permitted to have her own way. 

At the end of the week the calf was sold for three 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. Y9 

dollars — a low price ; but then my wife wanted tlie 
milk, and she and Kate w^ere anxious to begin tl'o 
milking. I am sure I was quite willing they should 
have all they could get. When they did begin, there 
was a great time. Now, most women profess to un- 
derstand precisely how a cow should be milked, and 
yet comparatively few know any thing about it. 
They remind me of the Irish girls Avho are hunting 
places. These are all first-rate cooks, if you take 
their word for it, and yet not one in a hundred knows 
any thing of even the first principles of cooking. 

The first process in the operation of milking is to 
fondle with the cow, make her acquaintance, and thus 
give her to understand that the man or maid with 
the milking pail approaches her with friendly inten- 
tions, in order to relieve her of the usual lacteal 
secretion. It will never do to approach the animal 
with combative feelings and intentions. Should the 
milker be too impetuous; should he swear, speak 
loud and sharp, scold or kick, or otherwise abuse or 
frighten the cow, she will probably prove refractory 
as a mule, and may give the uncouth and unfeeling 
milker the benefit of her heels, — a very pertinent 
reward, to which he, the uncouth milker, is justly 
entitled. Especially in the case of a new milker, 
who may be a perfect stranger to the cow, the utmost 
kindness and deliberation are necessary. 

Before comrnencing to milk, a cow should be fed, 
or have some kind of fodder ofiered her, in view of 
diverting her attention from the operation of milk- 
ing. By this means the milk is not held up, as the 
saying is, but is yielded freely. All these precau- 



80 TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 

tions are more indisi^ensable when the cow has just 
been deprived of her calf. She is then uneasy, fret- 
ful, and irritable, and generally so disconsolate as to 
need the kindest treatment and the utmost soothing. 
The milker should be in close contact with the cow's 
body, for in this position, if she attempt to kick him, 
he gets nothing more than a push, whereas if he sits 
off at a distance, the cow has an opportunity to inflict 
a severe blow whenever she feels disposed to do so. 

All milkers of cows should understand that the 
udder and teats are highly organized, and conse- 
quently very sensitive; and these facts should be 
taken into consideration by amateur milkers, es- 
pecially when their first essay is made on a young ani- 
mal after the advent of her first calf, and that one just 
taken from her. At this period, the hard tugging and 
squeezing to which many poor dumb brutes have to 
submit in consequence of the application of hard-fisted, 
callous, or inexperienced fingers, is a barbarity of the 
very worst kind ; for it often converts a docile crea- 
ture into a vicious one, from which condition it is 
extremely difiicult, if not impossible, to wean her. 

Of every one of these requisites both w^ife and 
daughter were utterly ignorant. They went talking 
and laughing into the barn, one wath a bright tin 
pail in her hand, an object which the cow had never 
before seen, and both made at her, forgetting that 
they were utter strangers to her. Besides, she was 
thinking of her absent calf, and did not want to see 
any thing else. Their appearance and clamor of 
course frightened her, and as they approached her, 
so she avoided them. They follow^ed, but she con- 



TEN AOEES ENOUGH. 81 

tinned to avoid, and once or twice pnt down her head, 
shook it menacingly, and even made an incipient 
hmge at them with her sharply pointed horns. These 
decided demonstrations of anger frightened them in 
turn, and they forthwith gave np the pursuit of milk 
in the face of difficulties so unexpected. We got 
none that night. In the morning we sent for an 
experienced milker, but she had the utmost difficulty 
in getting- the cow to stand quiet even for a moment. 
My wdfe was quite subdued about the matter. It 
would never do to keep a cow that nobody could milk 
She said but little, however — it was her cow. Longer 
trial produced no more encouraging result, as she 
seemed untamable, and my wife was glad to have me 
sell her for twenty dollars, at the same time resolving 
never again to buy a cow with her first calf. 

It was voted unanimously that another should be 
procured, and that this time the choice should be left 
to me. JSTow, I never had any idea of buying poor 
things of any kind merely because they were cheap. 
When purchasing or making tools or machinery, I 
never bought or made any but the very best, as I 
found that even a good workman could never do a 
good job with poor tools. So with all my farm im- 
plements — I bought the best of their kind that could 
be had. If my female gardeners had been furmshed 
with heavy and clumsy hoes and rakes, because such 
were cheap, their mere weight would have disgusted 
them with the business of hoeing and weeding. So 
with a cow. It is true, I had become the owner of a. 
magnificent thirty-dollar horse ; but it w^as the only 
beast I could get hold of at the moment when a horse 

4* 



82 TE-N" ACEES ENOUGH. 

must be had. Besides, he turned out to be like a 
singed cat, a vast deal better than he looked. 

I had repeatedly heard of a cow in the neighbor- 
ing town, which was said to yield so much milk as 
to be the principal support of a small family whose 
head was a hopeless drunkard. She had cost seventy- 
five dollars, and had been a present to the drunkard's 
wife from one of her relatives. By careful inquiry, 
I satisfied myself that this cow gave twenty quarts 
daily, and that five months after calving, and on very 
indiii'erent pasture. I went to see her, and then her 
owner told me she was going to leave the place, and 
would sell the cow for fifty dollars. I did not hesi- 
tate a moment, but paid the money and had the cow 
brought home the same evening. My wife and 
daughter had not the least difficulty in learning to 
milk her. Under their treatment and my improved 
feeding, we kept her in full flow for a long time. 
She gave quite as much milk as two ordinary cows, 
wdiile we had the expense of keeping only one. This 
I consider genuine good management : the best is 
always the cheapest. 

The cow w^as never permitted to go out of the 
barnyard. A trough of water enabled her to drink 
as often as she needed, but her green food was brouglit 
to her regularly three times daily, with double al- 
lowance at night. I began by mowing all the little 
grass-plots about the house and lanes, for in these 
sheltered nooks the sod sends up a heavy growth far 
in advance of field or meadow. But this supply was 
soon exhausted, though it lasted more than a week : 
besides, these usually neglected nooks afforded several 



TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 83 

mowings during the season, and the repeated cuttings 
produced the additional advantage of maintaining 
the "sod in beautiful condition, as well as getting rid 
of numberless weeds. When the grass had all been 
once mowed over, we resorted to the clover. This also 
was mowed- and taken to her ; and by this treatment 
my little clover-field held out astonishingly. Long 
before I had gone over it once, the portion first 
mowed was up high enough to be mowed again. 
Indeed, we did secure some hay in addition. In this 
way both horse and cow were soiled. When the 
clover gave out, the green corn which I had sowed 
in rows was eighteen inches to two feet high, and in 
capital condition to cut and feed. It then took the 
place of clover. Both horse and cow^ devoured it 
with high relish. It was the extra sweet corn 
now so extensively cultivated in I^ew Jersey for 
market, and contained an excess of saccharine matter, 
which made it not only very palatable, but which 
sensibly stimulated the flow of milk. 

The yield of green food which this description of 
corn gives to the acre, when thus sowed, is enormous. 
'Not having weighed it, I cannot speak as to the exact 
quantity, but should judge it to be at least seven 
times that of the best grass or clover. Even w^ithout 
cutting up with a straw-knife, the pigs ate it with 
equal avidity. In addition to this, the cow was fed 
morning and night with a little bran. The uncon- 
sumed corn, after being dried where it grew, was cut 
and gathered for winter foddei', and when cut fiiie 
and mixed with turnips which had been passed 
through a slicer, kept the' cow in excellent condition. 



84: TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

She of course got many an. armful of cabbage-leaves 
dming the autumn and all through the winter, with 
now and then a sprinkling of sliced pumpkins, from 
w^hicli the seeds had first been taken, as they are sure 
to diminish the flow of mill?:. 

Thus I Vv^as obliged to lay out no money for either 
horse or cow, except the few dollars expended for 
bran. By this treatment I secured all the manure 
they made. By feeding the barnyard itself, as well 
as the hog-pen, with green weeds and wliatever litter 
and trash could be gathered up, the end of the sea- 
son found me with a huge manure pile, all nicely 
collected under a rough shed, out of reach of drench- 
ing rain, hot sun, and wasting winds. I certainly 
secured thrice as much in one season as had ever 
been made on that place in three. In addition to 
this, the family had had more milk than they could 
use, fresh, rich, and buttery. Even the pigs fell heir 
to an occasional bucket of skim-milk. 

When our city friends came to spend a day or two 
with us, we were able to astonish them with a 
tumbler of thick cream, instead of. the usual staple 
beverages of the tea-table. My wife evidently felt a 
sort of pride in making a display of this kind, and 
Kate invariably spread herself by taking our visitors . 
to the barnyard, to let them see how expert she had 
become at milking. When they remarked, at table, 
on the surpassing richness of the cream, as well as 
the milk, my wife was very apt to reply — 

" Yes, but when your turn comes to go in the coun- 
try, be particular not to buy a cheap cow." 

This remark generally led to inquiry, and then 



TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 85 

Kate was brought out with .^e whole story of onr 
first and second cow, which she accordingly gave 
with ilhistrations infinitely more amusing than any I 
have been able to introduce. Indeed, her power of 
amplification sometimes astonished me. She told 
the story of our having been cheated by the old sin- 
ner, with such graphic liveliness, my wife now and 
then interposing a parenthesis, that the company in- 
variably coxicluded it was by far the better policy to 
give a wide berth to cheap cows. I am not certain 
whether the fun occasioned by Kate's narratives was 
not really very cheaply purchased by the small loss 
we suffered on that occasion. 

This abundance of milk wrought quite a change 
in our habits as to tea and coffiae. At supper, during 
the summer, we drank* milk only ; but insensibly we 
ran on in the same way into cold weather. In the 
end, we found that we liked coffee in the morning 
only. This was a clear saving, besides being quite 
as wholesome. Our city milk bill had usually been 
a dollar a week. I am quite sure it did not cost over 
sixty cents a week to keep the cow. Then we had 
puddings and other dishes, which milk, alone makes 
palatable, whenever we wanted them ; and at any 
time of a hot summer's day a full draught of cold 
milk was always within reach. Then the quality 
was much superior, exceeding any thing to be found 
in city milk. I must admit that keeping a cow, like 
most other good things, involves some trouble ; but 
my family would cheerfully undertake twice as much 
as they have ever had with ours, rather than dispense 
with this yet imcanonized saint of the barnyard. 



86 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



CHAPTEE XI. 

A CLOUD OF WEEDS GEEAT SALES OF PLANTS. 

June came without my being obliged to hire any 
thing but occasional help on the farm. But when 
the month was fairly set in, I fonnd every inch of 
my ploughed land in a fair way of being smothered by 
the weeds. I was amazed at the conntless numbers 
which sprang up, as well as at the rapidity with 
which they grew. There was almost every variety 
of these pests. It seemed as if the whole township 
had concentrated its wealth of weeds upon my prem- 
ises. In the quick, warm soil of ]N"ew Jersey, they 
appear to have found a most congenial home, as they 
abound on every farm that I have seen. Cultivators 
appear to have abandoned all hope of eradicating 
them. Knowing that the last year's crop had gone 
to seed, I confess to looking for something of the 
kind, but I was wholly unprepared for the thick 
haze which everywhere covered the ground. 

I can bear any quantity of snakes, but for weeds 
I have a sort of religious aversion. I tried one week 
to overcome them with the cultivator, but I made 
discouraging headway. I then bought a regular 
horse-weeder, which cut them down rapidly and 
eil'ectually. But meantime others were growing up 
in the rows, and corners, and by-places, where noth- 
ing but the hoe could reach them, and robbing the 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 8T 

crops of their support. It would never do to culti- 
vate weeds — they must be got rid of at any cost, or 
my crops would be worthless. Several neighboring 
farmers, w^ho had doubtless counted on this state of 
things, came along about the time they supposed my 
hands would be full, looked over the fence at my 
courageous onslaught, laughed, and called out, " It's 
no use — you can't kill the w^eeds !" Such was the 
sympathy they afforded. If my house had been on 
fire, every one of them would have promptly hurried 
to the rescue ; but to assist a man in killing his weeds 
was what no one dreamed of doing. He didn't kill 
his own. 

In this dilemma I was forced toi^re a young man 
to help me, contracting to give him twelve dollars a 
month and board him. He turned out sober and in- 
dustrious. We went to work courageously on the 
w^eeds. I will admit that my man Dick was quite as 
certain as my neighbors that we could never get per- 
manently ahead of them, and that thus lacking faith 
he took hold of the cultivator and weeder, while I 
attacked the enemy in the rows and by-places. I 
kept him constantly at it, and w^orked steadily my- 
self. A Aveek's labor left a most encouraging mark 
upon the ground. The hot sun wilted and dried up 
the weeds as we cut them off. Two weeks enabled 
us to get over the whole lot, making it look clean and 
nice. I congratulated myself on our success, and 
inquired of Dick if he didn't think we had got ahead 
of the enemy now. This was on a Saturday evening. 
Dick looked up at the sky, which w^as then black and 
showery, with a warm south wind blowing, and a 



88 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

broad laugh came over his features as he replied, 
" This will do till next time." The fellow was evi- 
dently unwilling either to encourage or to disap- 
point me. 

That night a powerful rain fell, with a warm, 
sultry wind, being what farmers call "growing 
weather." I found it to be even so, good for weeds 
at least. Monday morning came with a hot, clear 
sun, and, under the combined stimulating power of 
sun, rain, and temperature, I found that in two nights 
a new generation had started into life, quite as nu- 
merous as that we had just overcome. As I walked 
over the ground in company with Dick, I was con- 
founded at the sight. But I noticed that l^e expressed 
no astonishment whatever — it was just what he knew 
was to come — and so he declared it would be if w^e 
made the ground as clean as a parlor every week. 

He said he never knew the weeds to be o-ot out of 
Jersey ground, and protested that it couldn't be done. 
He admitted tliat they were nuisances, but so were 
mosquitoes. But as neither, in his opinion, did any 
great harm, so he thought it not worth while to spend 
much time or money in endeavoring to get rid of 
them. In either case he considered the attempt a 
vain one, and this was the whole extent of his phi- 
losophy. He had in fact been educated to believe in 
weeds. I was mortified at his indifference, for I had 
labored to infuse into his mind the same hatred of 
the tribe with which my wife and Kate had been so 
happily inoculated. But Dick was proof against 
inoculation — his system repudiated it. 

But it set me to thinking. As to defining what a 



TEN AOEES ENOUGH. 89 

weed was, I did not undertake that, beyond pro- 
nouncing it to be a plant growing out of its proper 
place. Neither did I undertake to settle the ques- 
tion as to the endless variety there seemed to be o5 
these pests, nor by what unaccountable agency they 
had become so thoroughly diffused over the earth. 
I could not fail to admit, however, that it seemed, 
in the providence of God, that whenever man ceased 
to till the ground and cover it with cultivated crops, 
at his almighty command there sprung up a profuse 
vegetation w^ith which to clothe its nakedness. While 
man might be idle, it w^as impossible for nature to 
be so — the earth could not lie barren of every thing 
But it seemed to me impossible that these ten acres 
of mine could contain an absolutely indefinite num- 
ber of seeds of these unwelcome plants. There must 
be some limitation of the number. At what figure 
did it stop ? *Was it one million, or a hundred mil- 
lions ? Neither Dick nor myself could answer this 
question. 

Yet I came resolutely to the conclusion that there 
must be a limitation, and that if we could induce all 
the seeds contained in the soil to vegetate, and then 
destroy the plants before they matured a new crop, 
we should ever afterwards be excused from such con- 
stant labor as we had gone through, and as was likely 
to be our experience in the future. I submitted this 
proposition to Dick — that if we killed all the weeds 
as they grew, the time would come when there v/ould 
be no weeds to kill. It struck me as being so simple 
that even Dick, with all his doggedness, could neither 
fail to comprehend nor acknowledge it. He did 



90 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

manage to comprehend it, but as to acknowledging 
its force, one might have argued with him for a 
month. He utterly denied the premises — he had no 
faith in our Jersey weeds ever being killed, no matter 
how much luck we had -thus far had with them, and 
I would see that he was right. 

But having originated the dogma, I fully believed 
in it, and felt bound to maintain it ; so Dick and I 
went resolutely to work a second time, as soon as the 
new crop was well out of the ground. The labor 
was certainly not as great as on the first crop, but it 
was hot work. I carried a file in my pocket, and 
kept my hoe as sharp as I have always kept my carv- 
ing knife, and taught Dick to put his horse-wceder 
in prime order every evening when we had quit work. 
The perspiration ran in a stream from me in the hot 
sun, and a few blisters rose on my hands, but my ap- 
petite was rampant, and never have -my slumbers 
been so undisturbed and peaceful. 

About the third week in .Tune we got through the 
second cleaning, and then rested. From that time 
to the end of the first week in July there had been 
no rain, with a powerfully hot sun. During tliis 
interval the weeds grew again, and entirely new gen- 
erations, some few of the first varieties, but the 
remainder being new sorts. Thus there were wet- 
w^eather weeds and dry-weather weeds; and as I 
afterwards found, there was a regular succession of 
varieties from spring to winter, and even into Decem- 
ber — cold-weather weeds as well as hot-weather 
weeds. Against each new army as it showed itself 
an onslaught was to be made. I was persuaded in 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 91 

my mind that the same army which we killed this 
year could not show itself the next, and that there- 
fore there ought to be that number less. But Dick 
could not see this. 

1 observed, moreover, th-at each variety had its 
particular period when it vegetated, so that it might 
have time to get ahead and keep out of the way of 
its successor. It was evident that the seeds of any 
one kind did not all vegetate the same season. Here- 
in was a wonderful provision of Providence to insure 
the perpetuity of all ; for if all the rag-weed, for in- 
stance, had vegetated the first season of my experi- 
ence, they would assuredly have been killed. But 
multitudes remained dormant in the earth, as if thus 
stored up for the purpose of repairing, another year, 
the casualties which their forerunners had encoun- 
tered during the present one. Thus no one weed 
can be extirpated in a single season ; neither do we 
have the whole catalogue to attack at the same time. 

My warfare against the enemy continued un- 
abated. As the time came for each new variety to 
show itself, so we took it in hand with hoe and 
weeder. Dick and his horse made such admirable 
progress, that I cannot refrain from recommending 
this most efficient tool to the notice of every cultiva- 
tor. With one man and a horse it will do the work 
of six men, cutting off the weeds just below the 
ground and leaving them to wilt on the surface. It 
costs but six dollars, and can be had in all the cities. 
It would have cost me a hundred dollars to do the 
same amount of work with the hoe, which this imple- 
ment did within four weeks. 



92 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

Thus aided, our labors extended clear into IsTovem- 
ber. In the intervals between the different growths 
of weeds, we looked after the other crops. But 
when the winter closed in upon us, the whole ground 
w^as so thoroughly cleaned of them as to be the 
admiration of the jeerers and croakers who, early in 
the season, had pitied my enthusiasm or ridiculed 
my anticipations. Even Dick was somewhat sub- 
dued and doubtful. I do not think a single w^eed 
escaped our notice, and went to seed that season. 

I saw this year a beautiful illustration of the idea 
that there are specific manures for certain plants. I 
can hardly doubt that each has its specific favorite, 
and that if cultivators could discover what that 
favorite is, our crops might be indefinitely increased. 
On a piece of ground which had been sowed with 
turnips, on which guano had previously been sprinkled 
during a gentle rain, there sprang up the most mar- 
vellous growth of purslane that ever met one's eyes. 
The whole ground was covered with the rankest 
growth of this weed that could be imagined. Every 
turnip was smothered out. It seemed as if the dor- 
mant purslane-seed had been instantly called into 
life by the touch of the guano. It was singular, too, 
that we had noticed no purslane growing on that 
particular spot previous to the application of this 
rapidly-acting fertilizer. 

I confess the sight of a dense carpet of purslane 
instead of a crop of turnips, almost staggered me as 
to the correctness of my theory that the number of 
seeds in the ground, yet to vegetate, must somewhere 
ha\^e a limit. Here were evidently millions of a 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



93 



kind which, up to this time, had not even showed . 
themselves. After allowing the pnrslane to grow 
two weeks, Dick cut it off with his horse-weeder, 
raked it np, and carried it to the pigs, who consumed 
it with avidity. We then recnltivated the ground 
and sowed again with turnips ; but the yield was 
very poor. Either the purslane had appropriated 
the whole energy of the guano, or the sowing was 
too late in the season. 

But this little incident will illustrate the value ol 
observation to a farmer. Book-farming is a good 
thing in its place, but observation is equally instruc- 
tive. The former is not sufficient, of itself, to make 
good tillers of the soil. It will not answer in place 
of attentive observation. It forms, indeed, but the 
poorest kind of a substitute for Irhat habit which 
every farmer shoiild cultivate, of going all over his 
premises daily during the growing season, and no- 
ticing the peculiarities of particular iDlants ; the habits 
of destructive animals or insects ; the depredations as 
well as the services of birds; the when, the how, and 
the apparent wherefore of the germination of seeds; 
the growth of the stem, the vine, or the stalk that 
proceeds from them, and the formation, growth, and 
ripening of the fruit which they bear. Let no farm- 
er, fruit-grower, or gardener, neglect observation for 
an exclusive reliance on book-farming. 

It would be a most erroneous conclusion for the 
reader to suppose that all this long-continued labor 
in keeping the ground clear of weeds was so much 
labor thrown away. On the contrary, even apart 
from ridding the soil of bo many nuisances, bo many 



94 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

robbers of the nourishment provided for nsefiil plants, 
it kept the land in the most admirable condition. 
The good conferred upon the garden by hoeing and 
raking, was re-enacted here. Every thing I had 
planted grew with surprising luxuriance. I do think 
it was an illustration of the value of thorough cul- 
ture, made so manifest that no one could fail to ob- 
serve it. It abundantly repaid me for all my watch- 
fulness and care. Dick was forced to acknowledge 
that he had seen no such clean work done in that 
part of New Jersey. 

My nurseryman came along at the end of the 
season, to see how I had fared, and walked deliber- 
ately over the ground with me, examining the peach- 
trees. He said he had never seen young trees grow 
more vigorously. jN^ot one of them had died. The 
raspberries had not grown so much as he expected, 
but the strawberry-rows were now tilled with plants. 
As runners were thrown out, I had carefully trained 
them in line with the parent stools, not permitting 
them to sprawl right and left over a great surface, 
forming a mass that could not be weeded, even by 
hand. This he did not approve of. He said by 
letting them spread out right and left the crop of 
fruit would be much greater, but admitted that the 
size of the berries would be much smaller. But he 
contended that quantity was what the public wanted, 
,and that they did not care so much for quality. 
Yet he could not explain the damaging fact that the 
largest sized fruit was always the most eagerly 
sought after, and invariably commanded the highest 
price. Though he did not approve of my mode of 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 95 

cultivation, yet lie could not convince me that I had 
made a mistake. 

From these we walked over to the blackberries. 
They, too, had grown finely under my thorough 
culture of the ground. Besides sending up good 
canes which promised a fair crop the next season. 
each root had sent up several suckers, some of them 
several feet away, and out of the line of the row. 
These I had intended to sell, and had preserved as 
many as possible, knowing there would be a demand 
for all. The interest in the new berry had rapidly 
extended all round among my neighbors, and I very 
soon discovered that my nurseryman wanted to buy. 
In fact, I believe he came more for that purpose than 
to see how I was doing. But I talked offish — spoke 
of having engaged two or three lots, and could 
hardly speak with certainty. Finally, he ofi'ered to 
give me a receipt for the $120 he was to receive out 
of the strawberries he had sold me, and pay me $100 
down, for a thousand blackberry plants. Though I 
felt pretty sure I could do better, yet I closed with 
him. As he had evidently come prepared with 
money to clinch some sort of bargain, he produced it 
and paid me on the spot. He afterwards retailed 
nearly all of the plants for a much larger sum. But 
it was a good bargain for both of us. It paid me 
well, and was all clear profit. 

I may add that these blackbeny roots came into 
more active demand from that time until the next 
spring ; and when spring opened, more suckers came 
up, as if knowing they were wanted. These, with my 
previous stock, amounted to a large nimiber. A seed 



yt) TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

man in tlie city advertised them for sale, and took 
retail orders for me. His sales, with my own, ab- 
sorbed every root I could spare. When they had all 
been disposed of, and my receipts were footed up, I 
found that they amounted to four hundred and sixty 
dollars, leaving me three hundred and forty dollars 
clear, after paying for my strawberry plants. 

This was far better than I had anticipated. It 
may sound curiously now^, when the plants can be 
had so cheaply, but it is a true picture of the market 
at the time of which 1 write. - It is the great profit 
to be realized from the sale of new plants that stim- 
ulates their cultivation. Many men have made for- 
tunes from the sale of a new fruit or flower, and 
others are repeating the operation now. In fact, it 
is the hope of this great gain that has given to the 
world so many new and valuable plants, some origi- 
nated from seed, some by hybridization, some from 
solitary hiding-places in the woods and mountains, 
and some by importation form distant countries. 
Success in one thing stimulates to exertion for an- 
other, and thus the race of a vast and intelligent 
competition is maintained. But the public is the 
greatest gainer after all. 

My profits from this source, the first year, may by 
some be regarded as an exceptional thing, to be real- 
ized only by the fortunate few, and not to be regu- 
larly counted on. But this is not the case. There 
are thousands of cultivators who are constantly in 
the market as purchasers. If it were not so, the vast 
nursery establishments w^hich exist all over the coun- 
try could not be maintained. Every fruit-grower, 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 97 

like myself, has been compelled to buy in the begin- 
ning of his operations ; but his turn for selling has 
invariably come round. As a general rule, whatever 
outlay a beginner makes in supplying himself with 
the smaller fruits, is afterwards reimbursed from the 
sale of surplus plants he does not need. This sale 
occurs annually, and in time will far exceed his origi- 
nal outlay. 

If the plants be rare in the market, and if he 
should have gone into the propagation aj; a very early 
day, before prices have found their lowest level, his 
profits will be the larger. Hence the utmost watch- 
fulness of the market should be maintained. Is'ew 
plants, better breeds of animals, and in fact every 
improvement connected with agriculture, if judi- 
ciously adopted at the earliest moment, will gener- 
ally be found to pay, even after allowing for losses on 
the numerous cheats which are continually turning up. 
5 



98 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

CHAPTEE XII. 

PIGS AND POULTRY LUCK 'AND ILL LUCK. 

Yeey early after taking possession, I invested 
twelve dollars in the purchase of seven pigs of the 
ordinary country breed. They were wanted to eat 
the many odds and ends which are yielded by ten 
acres, a gooS garden, and the kitchen. I did not 
look for mnch money profit from them, bnt I knew 
they were great as architects in building up a manure 
heap. Yet they were capital things with which to 
pack a meat-tub at Christmas, saving money from 
the butcher, as well as much running abroad to 
market. They shared with the cow in the abundant 
trimmings and surplus from the garden, eating many 
things which she rejected, and appropriating all the 
slop from the kitchen. In addition to this, we fed 
them twice a day with boiled bran, sometimes with 
a handful of corn meal, but never upon whole corn. 
This cooking of the food was no great trouble in the 
kitchen, but its effect on the pigs was most beneficial. 
They grew finely, except one which died after four 
months' feeding, but from what cause could not be 
ascertained. 

The consequence was, that when October came 
round, the six remaining ones were estimated by 
Dick to average at least one hundred and fifty pounds 
each, and were in prime condition for fattening. In 
the early part of that month their supply of cooked 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



99 



mnsli was increased. I am of opinion that farmers 
leave tlie fattening of their hogs too late, and that a 
month on corn, before December, is worth three 
months after it. By the tenth of December thej 
were ready for the butcher, and on being killed, 
were found to average two hundred and twenty-four 
pomids, or nine hundred and forty-four in all. This 
being three times as much as we needed for home 
use, the remainder was sent to the store, where it net- 
ted me forty-nine dollars. 

I am quite certain there was a profit on these pigs. 
They consumed quantities of refuse tomatoes, and 
devoured parsnips with the greatest eagerness. One 
day I directed Dick to cut up some stalks of our 
green sweet corn, by means of the fodder-cutter, 
which delivers them in pieces half an inch long, and 
mix them with bran for the pigs. I found they 
consimied it with great avidity. Ever after that 
they were served twice daily with the same mess. It 
seemed to take the place of stronger food, as well as 
of grass, and was an acceptable variety. In this way 
the money cost of food was kept at a low figure, a.nd 
the labor we spent on the pigs showed itself in the 
fine yield of prime pork, which brought the highest 
. price in the market. The yield of rich manure was 
also very satisfactory, all which, at intervals through 
the season, was removed from the pen and put under 
cover, for manm-e thus housed from the sun and rain 
is worth about double that which is exposed all the 
year round. This was another item of profit ; if the 
pigs had not manufactured it, money would have 
been required to pay for its equivalent. 



100 TEN ACEE8 ENOUGH. 

After these six had been killed, I purchased seven 
others, some two months old, having abundance of 
roots, offal cabbages, and a stack of the sweet-corn 
fodder on hand. These seven cost the same as the 
others, twelve dollars. As Dick was found to be a 
good, trustworthy fellow, he was to be kept all the 
year round ; and as he would be hanging about the 
barnyard during the winter, when the ground was 
wet and slopj^y, looking after the horse and cow, the 
pigs would help to fill up his time. The cooking of 
food for both cow and pigs was a great novelty to 
him. At first he could not be made to believe in it. 
"When I ventured to insinuate to him that it would 
be any thing but agreeable to him to eat his dinners 
raw, the force of the idea did not strike him. So 
much is there in the power of long-established habit. 
Yet he did condescend to admit that he knew all 
pigs throve better on plenty of common kitchen-swill 
than on almost any thing else. I told him there was 
but one reason for this, and that was because all such 
swill had been cooked. When the improvement 
made by the first lot of pigs became too manifest for 
even him to dispute, he, together with the pigs, ac- 
knowledged the corn and gave in. 

When out-door operations for the season were over, 
Dick undertook the whole business of cooking for the 
pigs and cow himself. In fact, on one occasion I 
succeeded in getting him to curry down both cow 
and pigs. They all looked and showed so much bet- 
ter for near a week thereafter, that coming on him 
imexpectedly one day, I found him repeating the 
oj)eration of his own motion, and so he voluntarily 



TEN AC-RES ENOUGH. 101 

continued the practice during the whole winter. The 
pigs seemed delighted with the process, and had very 
little scratching of their own to do. Their backs and 
sides were kept continually smooth, while their whole 
appearance was changed for the better. As to the 
cow, she took to being curried with the best possible 
grace, and improved under it as much as the pigs ; 
but whether it increased the flow of nnlk I cannot 
say, as no means were taken to solve that question. 
But as Dick's devotion to the currycomb excited my 
admiration, so there was abundant evidence that both 
pigs and cow were equally captivated. 

This business of raising and carefully attending to 
only half a dozen hogs, is worthy of every small farm- 
er's serious study and attention. The hog and his 
food, with what is cheapest and best for him, is really 
one of the sciences, not an exact one, it is true, but 
still a science. One must look at and study many 
things, and they can all be made to pay. The pro- 
pensity to acquire fat in many animals seems to have 
been implanted by nature. The hog fattens most 
rapidly in such a condition of the atmosphere as is 
most congenial to his comfort — not too hot, nor too 
cold. Hence the months of September, October, and 
November are the best for making pork. The more 
agreeable the weather, the less is the amount of food 
required to supply the waste of life. It has been 
found by some persons that a clover-field is the best 
and cheapest place to keep hogs in during the spring 
and summer months, where they have a plenty of 
water, the slop from the house, and the sour milk 
from the dairy. All sour feed contains more nitro- 



102 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

gen tlian when fed in a sweet state. The first green 
herbage of the spring works oiF the impin*ities of the 
blood, cleanses the system, renovates the constitution, 
and enables the animal to accumulate a store of 
strength to carry it forward to its destined course. 

Many object to beginning the fattening process so 
early in the season, as the corn relied on for that 
purpose is not then fully matured. But, taking all 
things into consideration, it is perhaps better to feed 
corn before it is ripe, as in that state it possesses 
more sweetness. Most varieties are in milk in Sep- 
tember, when the hogs will chew it, swallow the 
juice, and eject the dry, fibrous matter. During the 
growing season of the year, swine can be fed on 
articles not readily marketable, as imperfect fruit, 
vegetables, &c. When such <irticles are used, cook- 
ing them is always economical. Most vegetables, 
when boiled or steamed, and mixed w^ith only an 
eighth of their bulk of mill-feed or meal, whey, and 
milk left to sour, will fatten hogs fast. In this state 
they will eat it with avidity, and derive more benefit 
from it than wlien fed in an unfermented state. 
Articles of a perishable nature should be used first, 
to prevent waste, as it is desirable to turn all the 
products of the farm to the best account. Another 
quite important advantage of early feeding is the less 
trouble in cooking the food. Convenience of feeding 
is promoted, as there is no cost nor trouble to guard 
against freezing. 

The more you can mix the food, the better, as they 
will thrive faster on mixed food than when fed sep- 
arately. In feedhig, no more should be given at a 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 103 

time than is eaten up clean, and the feeding should 
be regular as to time. It is of the greatest import- 
ance to get the best varieties, those that are well 
formed, and have an aptitude for taking on fat 
readily, and consume the least food. As to which 
is the best kind, there seems to be a great diversity 
of opinion, some preferring one kind and some 
another. The Suffolks come to maturity earliest, 
and probably are the most profitable to kill at from 
seven to ten months; but others prefer the Berk- 
shires. The pork of both is excellent: they will 
usually weigh from 250 to 300 pounds at the age of 
eight or ten months. The better way is to have the 
pigs dropped about the first of April, and feed well 
until December, and then butcher. 

From a variety of experiments, I am satisfied it is 
wrong to let a hog remain poor twelve months of his 
life, when he could be made as large in nine months 
as he generally is in "fifteen ; and I conceive it a 
great error to feed corn to hogs without grinding. 
It has been proved by the Shakers, after thirty 
years' trial, that ground com is one-third better for 
hogs and cattle-feed than if unground. In the case 
of another feeder, he ascertained the ratio of gain to 
be even greater than that of the Shakers. Others 
assert that cooking corn-meal nearly doubles its 
value. A distinguished agriculturist in Ohio proved 
that nineteen pounds of cooked meal were equal in 
value to fifty pounds raw. If pigs are well kept for 
three months after being dropped, they cannot be 
stunted after that, even if the supply of food is less 
than it should be. 



104 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

It is desirable that hogs slionlcl be provided witli 
a dry floor for eating and sleeping only, and the 
whole pen completely sheltered, to prevent any 
washing or waste of the mannre. The common- 
v^ealth of the piggery should be furnished with 
plenty of straw, potato-vines, leaves, sawdust, and 
the like, with an occasional load of muck, and almost 
any quantity of weeds, all of which will be converted 
into the most efficient supports of vegetable life. 
Hogs are the best composters known, as they delight 
in upturning any such article as the farmei wishes 
to convert into manure for the comiifg year. 

There can be no question as to its paying to make 
pork, though men differ on this as widely as their 
pork differs when brought to market. The poorer 
the pork, the more the owner complains of his profits, 
or rather of his losses ; and the better the pork, the 
more is the owner satisfied. There can be no profit 
in raising a poor breed of hogs, that have no fatten- 
ing qualities ; nor even a good breed, without con- 
veniences or proper care. A good hog cannot be 
fatted to any profit in mud or filth, nor where he 
sufffers from cold. His comfort should be consulted 
as much as that of any other animal. It is a great 
error to assume that he is naturally fond of living 
among filth. On the coiitrary, hogs are remarkably 
neat, and those which fatten the best always keep 
themselves the cleanest. One farmer assured me 
that he had made his corn bring $1.25 per bushel by 
passing it through the boAvels of his hogs, besides 
having the manure clear. Another did much better 
by cooking his meal. 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 105 

As no farm is pronounced complete without poul- 
try, and as both my wife and daughters were es- 
pecially fond of looking after chickens, — at least 
they thought they would be, — so, to make their new 
home attractive, I invested $7 in the purchase of a 
cock and ten hens. They were warranted to be 
powerful layers, and would hatch fifteen eggs apiece. 
It struck me that this sounded very large, but on 
my wife observing it would be only a hundred and 
fifty chickens the first season, I gave in without a 
word. The fact is that chickens were not my hobby. 
I did not think they would pay, even after hearing 
my wife dilate on the luxury it would be to have 
fresh eggs every morning for breakfast, for pies and 
puddings, and various other things which she enu- 
merated, and, as she expressed it, " eggs of our own 
laying." 

I could not see how this circle of wonders was to 
be accomplished by only ten hens, and insinuated 
that it would be a good thing if she could make a 
bargain with each of her hens to lay two eggs a day. 
In reply to this, she astonished me by saying that 
Americans did not know how to make the most of 
things, but that the French did. She said that a cer- 
tain Frenchman, mentioning his name — he was either 
a marquis or count, of course — had recently discov- 
ered the art of making hens lay every day by feeding 
them on horse-flesh, and that he feeds out twenty-five 
horses a day, which he obtains among the used-up 
hacks of Paris. She said he had a hennery which 
furnishes forty thousand dozens of eggs a week, and 
that it yields the proprietor a clear profit of ^ve ' 



106 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

thousand dollars every seven days. After hearing 
this I felt certain she had been reading some modern 
poultiy-hook. But as she did not speak of requiring 
me to furnish horse-flesh for her pets, nor contem- 
plate the establishment of a fresh-laid egg company, 
but only suggested the consumption of a little raw 
meat now and then, I volunteered no objections. 
Her enthusiasm w^as such as to make it unsafe to do so. 
Why aiiould not she and the children be gratified ? 

The hens came home, and were put into a cage in 
the barnyard, to familiarize them with their new 
home. But they did not lay so freely as she had ex- 
pected, while some did not lay at all. Worse than 
that, as soon as let out of their cage, they got over 
the fence into the garden, where they scratched as 
violently as if each one had a brood of fifteen to 
scratch for. They made terrible havoc among the 
young flowers and vegetables, and tore up the beds 
which had been so nicely raked. One of the girls 
was employed half her time in driving them out. I 
thought it too great an expense to raise the barnyard 
fence high enough to keep them in, and so they were 
marched back into the cage. It happened to be too 
small for so many fowls, which my wife did not sus- 
pect, until one day, putting her hand in to draw 
forth a sick hen, she discovered her whole arm and 
sleeve to be swarming with lice. Here was some- 
thing she did not remember to have been treated of 
in her poultry-book. But the nuisance was so great, 
as well as so active, soon extending itself all over her 
person, as to comj)el her to strip and change her entire 
dress, and to plunge the lousy one in a tub of water. 



- TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 107 

I confess the difficulty was a new one to me. My 
experience in poultry had been limited. My knowl- 
edge of them was exclusively anatomical, obtained 
by frequent dissections with the carving-knife. On 
calling Dick, however, it appeared that he knew 
more about this trouble than the whole family to- 
getlier. When my wife described her condition to 
him, and how she had sw^armed with the vermin, the 
fellow laughed outright, but said they wouldn't hurt 
— he knew all about them, for he had been full of 
lice more than once ! He said he expected this, as 
the fowls had been kept up too close : they w^ould 
neither lay, thrive, nor keep clear of vermin, unless 
allowed to run about. 

But he took the case in hand, clipped their wrings, 
saturated their heads with lamp oil, j)rovided abun- 
dance of ashes for them to roll in, and then turned 
them loose in the barnyard. He then obtained poles 
of sassafras wood for them to roost on, as he said the 
peculiar odor of that tree w^ould drive the enemy 
away. I presume his prescriptions answered the pur- 
pose ; at all events, we discovered no more hen-lice, 
because the whole family were careful never to touch 
a fowl again. 

I think this little catastrophe took all the romance 
out of my wife touching chickens. I rarely heard 
her mention eggs afterwards, except when some of 
us were going to the store for other things, and she 
was careful never to purchase chickens with the 
feathers on. She never referred to the hundred and 
fifty she was to hatch out that season ; nor have I 
ever heard her even mention horse-flesh as a sure 



108 TEN ACKES ENOrGH. 

tiling for making liens lay all the year ronnd. That 
winter Dick fattened and killed the whole lot. My 
wife did not seem to have much stomach for them 
when they came upon the table. 1 was not sorry for 
it, except that she had been disappointed. Her 
knowledge of keeping poultry had been purely theo- 
retical, and her first disappointment had completely 
weaned her of her fondness for the art. 

But this brief and unlucky experience of ours 
should by no means operate to discourage others. 
Money is undoubtedly made by skilful men at 
raising poultry. It cannot be a losing business, or 
so many thousand tons would not be annually pro- 
duced. Volumes have been written on the subject, 
which all who contemplate embarking in the business 
may consult with profit. As an incident of farm life 
it will always be interesting, and with those who 
understand the art it ought to be profitable. 

Foreigners must be more experienced in the busi- 
]iess of raising poultry than Americans, judging by 
the vast quantities they annually produce for mar- 
ket. The quantity imported into England is so 
enormous, that it is impossible to determine its 
amount. Into only two of the principal London 
markets there is annually brought from France and 
Belgium, 76,000,000 eggs, 2,000,000 fowls, 400,000 
pigeons, 200,000 geese and turkeys, and 300,000 
ducks. In addition to these, the large amount sent 
to poulterers and private houses must be considered. 
The Brighton railroad alone carries yearly 2,600 tons 
of eggs which come from France and Belgium. Yet, 
with all these immense supplies, the London markets 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 109 

are frequently very meagrely supplied with butter 
and eggs. The trade is shown by these figures to 
be one of great national value. Americans have 
strangely neglected its cultivation with the method 
and precision of foreigners. We can raise food 
more cheaply than they, while none of them can 
boast of possessing our incomparable Indian corn. 

There are several of my neighbors who are highly 
skilled in the art of raising poultry. One of them is 
quite a poultry-fancier, and, by keeping only choice 
breeds, he realizes fancy prices for them. Another 
confines his fowls in a plum-orchard, and thus 
secures an annual crop of plums, without being stung 
by the curculio. In general, the female portion of 
the family attend to this branch of domestic business, 
and realize a snug sum from it annually. A brood 
of young chickens turned into a garden, the hen con- 
fined in her coop, wiU soon clear it of destructive 
insects. 



110 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE CONTRASTED. 

The pensive reader must not take it for granted 
that in going into the country we escaped all the 
annoyances of domestic life peculiar to the city, or 
that we fell heir to no new ones, such as we had 
never before experienced. He must remember that 
this is a world of compensations, and that no- 
where will he be likely to find either an unmixed 
good or an unmixed evil. Such was exactly our 
experience. But on summing up the two, the bal- 
ance was decidedly in our favor. It is true that 
though the town close by us had well-paved streets, 
yet the walk of half a mile to reach them was a 
mere gravel path, which was sometimes muddy in 
sununer, and sloppy with unshovelled snow in win- 
ter. But I walked over it almost daily to the post- 
ofiice, not even imagining that it was worse than a 
city pavement. The tramp of the children to school 
was not longer than they had been used to, and my 
wife and daughters thought it no hardship to go 
shopping among the well-supplied stores quite as 
frequently as when living in the city. Indeed, I 
sometimes thought they went a little oftener. They 
were certainly as well posted up as to the new fash- 
ions as they had ever been, while the fresh country 
air, united with constant exercise, kept them in good 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. J-1^ 



appetite, even to the rounding of their cheeks, and 
the maintenance of a better color m them than evci. 
As to society, they very soon made acquaintances 
quite as agreeable as could be desn-ed^ Visitrng 
Vcame a very frequent thing; and after a iev, 
tilths I let in a Suspicion that the gir s W 
twice as many beaux as in the city, though theie the 
average number is always larger thaii m the country. 
On throwing out an insinuation of this kmd to Kate, 
one summer evening, after a large party of young 
folks had concluded their visit, she made open con- 
fession that it was so, and volunteered her conviction 
that they were decidedly more agreeable, i admit 
this confession did not surprise me, ds there was one 
voung man among the party who had become es- 
pecially* attentive to Kate-bringing her the new 
magazines as soon as they were out, sundry books 
ancl pictorials, and always having a deal to say 
to her, with a singular genius for getting her away 
from the rest of the company, so that most ot then 
mysterious small-talk could be heard by none but 
themselves. Another remark which I made to Kate 
on a subsequent occasion, touching this subject cov- 
ered her bright face with so many blushes tha.t i 
ventured to mention the whole matter to my wite; 
. but she made so light of the thing that I said no 
more at the time, thinking, perhaps, that the women 
^ere most likely the best judges in such cases. J3ut 
I have since discovered that my prognostications 
were much more to be depended on than hers. 

Then the walks for miles around us were excellent, 
and we all became great walkers, for walking we 



112 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

found to be good. Kot merely stepping from shop 
to shop, or from neighbor to neighbor, bnt stretching 
away ont into the country, to the freshest fields, the 
shadiest woods, the highest ridges, and the greenest 
lawns. We found that however snllen the imagina- 
tion may have been among its griefs at home, here it 
cheered np and smiled. However listless the limbs 
may have been by steady toil, here they were braced 
np, and the lagging gait became buoyant again. 
However stubborn the memory may be in presenting 
that only which was agonizi^ig, and insisting on that 
which cannot be retrieved, on walking among the 
glowing fields it ceases to regard the former, and 
forgets the latter. Indeed, we all came to esteem 
the mere breathing of the fresh wind upon the com- 
monest highway to be rest and comfort, wliich must 
be felt to be believed. 

But then we had neither gas nor hydrant water, 
those two prime luxuries of city life. Yet there was 
a pump in a deep well under a shed at the kitchen 
door, from which we drew water so cold as not at 
any time to need that other city luxury, ice. It was 
gratifying to see how expertly even the small chil- 
dren operated with the pump-handle. In a month 
we ceased to regret the hydrants. As to gas, we 
had the modern lamps, which give so clear a light ; 
not so convenient, it must be confessed, but then 
they did not cost us over half as much, neither did 
w^e sit up near so long at night. There were two 
mails from the city daily, and the newsboy threw the 
morning paper into the front door while we sat at 
breakfast. The evening paper came up from the 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 113 

citj before we had supped. We had two daily mails 
from ]S"ew York, besides a telegraph station. The 
baker served us twice a day with bread, when we 
needed it ; the oysterman became a bore, he rang 
the bell so often; and the fish-wagon, with sea-fish 
packed in ice, directly from the shore, was within 
call as often as we desired, with fish as cheap and 
sound as any to be purchased in the city. Groceries 
and provisions from the stores cost no more than 
they did there, but they were no cheaper. But in 
the item of rent the saving was enormous, — really 
half enough, in my case, to keep a moderate family. 
Many's the time, when sweating over the weeds, 
have I thought of this last heavy drain on the purse 
of the city toiler, and thanked Heaven that I had 
ceased to work for the landlord. 

We had books as abundantly as aforetime, as we 
retained our share in the city library, and became 
subscribers to that in the adjoining town. It is true 
that the road in front of us was never thronged like 
Chestnut-street, but we neither sighed after the crowd 
nor missed its presence. We saw no flash of jewel- 
ry, nor heard the rustling of expensive silks, except 
the few which on particular occasions were sported 
within our own unostentatious domicil. Our entire 
wardrobes were manifestly on a scale less costly than 
ever. Our old city friends were apparently a great 
way off, but as they could reach us in an hour either 
by steamboat or rail, they quickly found us out. The 
relish of their society was heightened by distance 
and separation. In short, while far from being her- 
mits, we were happy in ourselves. I think my wife 



114 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

became a perfectly liappy woman — what it had been 
the great study of my wedded life to make her — the 
very sparkle and sunshine of the house. She pos- 
sessed the magic secret of being contented under any 
circumstances. The current of my life had never 
been so dark and unpropitious, that the sunshine of 
her liappy face, falling across its turbid course, failed 
to awake an answering gleam. 

Speaking of visitors from abroad, I noticed that 
our city friends came to make their visits on the very 
hottest summer days, when, of all others, we were 
ourselves suificiently exhausted by the heat, and were 
disposed to put up with as little cooking and in-door 
work as possible. But as such visitations were not 
exactly comfortable to the visited, so we could not 
see how they could be any more agreeable to the vis- 
itors. Yet they generally remarked, even when the 
mercury was up to ninety-five, ^' How much cooler 
it is in the country !" They did really enjoy either 
themselves or the heat. But my wife told them it 
was only the change of scone that made the weather 
tolerable, and that if they lived in the country they 
would soon discover it to be quite as hot as in the 
city. For my part, I bore the heat admirably, though 
tanned by the sun to the color of an aborigine ; but 
I enjoyed the inexpressible luxury of going constant^ 
ill my shirt sleeves. I can hardly find words to de- 
scribe the feeling of comfort which I enjoyed for full 
seven months out of the twelve from this little j^iece 
of latitudinarianism, the privilege of country life,' 
l)ut an unknown luxury in the city. 

I saw that this press of company in the very hot- 



TEN A0KE8 ENOUGH. H^ 



test weatte imposed an iinpleasant burden on my 
wife, for sLe and my two oldest daughters ^vere lie 
sole caterers ; and I intended to say somethmg to lier 
coneerning it, as soon as a large party, then staymg 
several days with us, should have. concluded then 
visit. But on going into our chamber that very even- 
ing, she surprised me by asking if I could tell her 
why, ^'hen Eve was made from one of Adam s ribs, 
there was not a hired girl made at the same time, for 
to her mind it took three to make a pair-he, she, 
and a hired drl. I replied that I had not given 
much time to the study of navigation, but that L 
quite understood her meaning, and that it was ex- 
actly what I had myself been thinking of If 
Adam's rib, after producing Eve, had not held out to 
produce ahired girl also, I told her there was amuch 
quicker way of getting what she wanted, and that 
the first morning paper she might pick up would 
produce her twenty hired girls. 

In this way, before the summer was over, i pro- 
cured her a servant, thus making her little establish- 
ment complete. For this luxiiry we paid city wages. 
But this was a small item, when I saw how much her 
presence relieved my wife. After that, I do no 
think she complained quite as much of the hot 
weather, nor was she inclined so frequently to repeat 
her former observation, that the sultry days always 
brought the most company. Indeed, I am certain 
that on one or two occasions, when the dog-days were 
terribly oppressive, she prevailed on different parties 
to prolong their stay for nearly a week. 

Now, this taking on of Betty did not imply that 



116 TEN AOEES ENOUGH. 

my daugliters were to be brought up to do nothing— 
or to do every thing that is fashionable imperfectly. 
My wife had already educated them in domestic 
duties — not merely to marry, to go oli* with husbands 
in a hurry, and afterwards from them. To the two 
eldest she had taught a trade, and they were both 
able to earn their salt. They could not only dress 
themselves, but knew how to make their dresses and 
bonnets, and all the clothing for the younger children. 
She cultivated in them all that was necessary in the 
position in which they were born, one thing at a time, 
but that thing in perfection ; so that if parents were 
imj)overished, or if in. after-life reverses should over- 
take themselves, they might feel independent in the 
ability to earn their own support. She frowned upon 
the senseless rivalries of social life, as destructive of 
morals, mind, and health, and imbued their spirits 
with a devout veneration for holy things. She taught 
them no worship of the almighty dollar, but sound, 
practical economy, the art of saving the pieces. 
Surely it must be education alone which fills the 
world with two kinds of girls — one kind which ap- 
peals best abroad, good for parties, rides, and visits, 
and whose chief delight is in such things — good, 
in fact, for little else. The other is the kind that 
appears best at home, graceful in the parlor, cap- 
tivating in social intercourse, useful in the sick- 
chamber as in the dining-room, and cheerful in all 
the precincts of home. They differ widely in char- 
acter. One is often the family torment ; the other 
the family blessing: one a moth consuming every 
thing about her; the other a sunbeam, inspiring life 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 117 

and gladness all along lier pathway. As my wife 
embodied in herself all that to me appeared desira- 
ble in woman, so she possessed the faculty of trans- 
fusing her own virtues into the constitution of her 
daughters. 



118 



TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 



CHAPTEE XIY. 

TWO ACEES m TKIJCK EEVOLUTION IN AGRICULTUEE. 

I HAD one acre in tomatoes, a vegetable for whose 
production the soil of New Jersey is perhaps without 
a rival. The plants are started in hot-beds, where 
they flourish until all danger from frost disappears, 
when they are set out in the open air, with a gener- 
ous shovel-full of well-rotted stable manure deposited 
under each plant. A moist day is preferred for this 
operafion ; but even without it this plant generally 
goes on growing. It has been observed that the 
oftener it is transplanted, the more quickly it ma- 
tures ; and as the great eifort among growers is to be 
first in market, so some of them take pains to give it 
two transplantings. Having no hot-bed on my prem- 
ises, and my time being fully occupied with other 
things, I was compelled to purchase plants from those 
who had them to spare, the cost of which is elsewhere 
stated. But the operation paid well. 

The quantity produced by an acre of well-manured 
tomatoes is almost incredible. When in full bear- 
ing, the field seems to be perfectly red with them. 
Those which come first into market, even without 
being perfectly ripe, sell for sixpence apiece. So 
popular has this vegetable become, and so great is the 
profit realized by cultivating it, that for nearly twenty 
years it has been grown in large quantities by Jersey- 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 119 

men who emigrated to Yirginia for the purpose of 
taking advantage of the earlier climate of that genial 
region. There they bought farms, improved them 
by nsing freely the unappropriated and unvalued 
stores of manure to be found in the vicinity, and pro- 
duced whole cargoes of the choicest early vegetables 
required by the great consuming public of the north- 
ern cities. They shipped them hither two weeks 
ahead of all- the Jersey truckers, and were rewarded 
by fabulous prices, from the receipt of which large 
fortunes resulted. This mutually advantageous traffic 
had become a very important one, when rebellion 
broke it up. Intercourse was stopped, cultivation 
was abandoned, and the Yirginia truckers were 
ruined. 

Although this competition seriously interfered 
with the profits of ^N'ew Jersey farmers, yet it did 
not destroy them. The cultivation of early truck 
and fruit continued to pay, though not so well as 
formerly. When prices fell, the Southern growers 
could not afford the cost of delivery here, and tlius 
left us in undisputed possession of the market. But, 
as a general rule, the Yirginia competitors invariably 
obtained the highest prices. A great portion of 
their several crops, however, perished on their hands ; 
because, as they had no market here when prices fell, 
so the scanty population around them afforded none 
at home. 

For the first few baskets of early tomatoes I sent 
to market, I obtained two dollars per basket of three 
pecks each. Other growers coming in competition 
with me, the price rapidly diminished as the supply 



120 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

increased, until it fell to twenty-five cents a bnsliel. 
At less than this the growers refused to pick them ; 
and seasons have been repeatedly known when tens 
of thousands of bushels w^ere left to perish on the 
vines. When this low price could be no longer 
obtained, they were gathered and thrown to the pigs, 
who consumed' them freely. But as the season 
advanced the supply diminished, and the price again 
rose to a dollar a basket, the demand continuing as 
long as any could be procured. The tomatoes are at 
this season picked green from the vines, and j)laced 
under glass, where they are imperfectly ripened ; but 
such is the public appreciation of this wholesome 
vegetable, that when thus only half reddened, they 
are eagerly sought after by hotels and boarding- 
houses. 

But of latter years measures have been taken to 
prevent, to some extent, the enormous waste ol 
tomatoes during the height of the season, by preserv- 
ing them in cans. Establishments have been started, 
at which any quantity that may be offered is pur- 
chased at twenty-five cents a bushel ; and now they 
can be kept through the whole year, and be pre- 
served for winter consumption, the same as potatoes 
or turnips. By hermetically sealing them in cans 
from which the air has been expelled by heat, they 
are not only preserved, but made to retain their full 
flavor ; and may be enjoyed, at a very moderate cost, 
in the winter as well as the summer. The demand 
for them is constant, large, and increasing, and 
putting up canned tomatoes has become an extensive 
business. One person, who commenced the business 



TEX ACRES ENOUGH. 121 

two years ago, is literally up to tlie eyes in tomatoes 
once a year. He provides for a single year's trade 
over fifty thousand cans, all of which are manu- 
factured by himself; and he employs over thirty 
persons, most of them women. He engages tomatoes 
at twenty-five cents a bushel, a price at which the 
cultivator clears about a hundred dollars an acre, 
and they come in at the rate of a hundred and fifty 
bushels a day, requiring the constant labor of all 
hands into the night to dispose of them. 

The building in w^hich the business is carried on 
was constructed expressly for it. At one end of the 
room in which the canning is done is a range of 
brick-w^ork supporting three large boilers ; and ad- 
joining is another large boiler, in which the scalding 
is done. The tomatoes are first thrown into this 
scalder, and after remaining there a sufiicient time, 
are thrown upon a long table, on each side of which 
are ten or twelve young women, who rapidly divest 
them of their leathery hides. The peeled tomatoes 
are then thrown into the boilers, where they remain 
until they are raised to a boiling heat, when they 
are rapidly poured into the cans, and these are car- 
ried to the tinmen, who, with a dexterity truly mar- 
vellous, place the caps upon them, and solder them 
down, w^ien they are piled up to cool, after which 
they are labelled, and are ready for market. The 
rapidity and the system with which all this is done 
is most remarkable, one of the tinmen soldering 
nearly a hundred cans in an hour. 

The tomatoes thus preserved are readily salable 
in all the great cities, both for home consumption 



122 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

and for use at sea. Thus, few vegetables have 
gained so rapid and wide-spread a popularity as 
this. Until lately, but few persons would even taste 
them ; and they were raised, when cultivated at all, 
more from curiosity than any thing else. J^ow, 
scarcely a person can be found who is not fond of 
them, and they occupy a prominent place on almost 
every table. 

My single acre of tomatoes produced me a clear 
profit of $120. I am aware that others have real- 
ized more than double this amount, but they were 
experienced hands at the business. My gains were 
quite as much as I had anticipated. 

From all the remainder of the three acres but 
little money was produced. It gave me parsnips, 
turnips, and pumpkins. Between the rows of sweet 
corn a fine crop of cabbages was raised, of which my 
sales amounted to $82. Thus, an abundant supply 
of succulents food was provided for horse, cow, and 
pigs during the winter, all which saved the outlay of 
so much cash. I admit that a few of my vegetables 
did not yield equal to the grounds of some of my 
neighbors, thus disappointing some of my calcula- 
tions. But I was inexperienced, had much to learn, 
and was not discouraged. On the other hand, I had 
gone far ahead of them in the growth of my standard * 
fruits ; and the evident bit I had made with the new 
blackberry had the effect of impressing them with 
considerable respect for my courage and sagacity. 

This business of raising vegetables for the great 
city markets, " trucking," as it is popularly called, 
is now the great staple of New Jersey agriculture. 



TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 123 

All the region of countrj stretching from Camden 
some forty miles towards New York, once enjoyed the 
reputation of being either all sand or all pine. It is 
traversed by the old highway between Philadelphia 
and ]^ew York, laid ont by direction of royalty in 
colonial days, and protected at various points by 
barracks, in which troops were garrisoned. Some of 
the barracks remain to this day ; though in chambers 
where high military revel once was held, devout 
congregations now worship. Along this royal high- 
way passed all the early travel between the colonies ; 
and after they had been severed from their parent 
stem, up to the advent of steamboats and railroads, it 
was the only thoroughfare between the two cities of 
]^ew York and Philadelphia. Stages occupied five 
weary days between them, the horses exhausted by 
wading through a deep, laborious sand in smnmer, 
or the still deeper mud through which they floun- 
dered in winter. On miles of this road the sand was 
frightful. 1^0 local authorities worked it, no merci- 
ful builder of turnpikes ever thought of reclaiming 
it. It lay from generation to generation, as waste 
and wild as when the native pines were first cleared 
away. Access was so laborious, that few strangers 
visited the region through which it passed ; and the 
land was held in large tracts, whereon but few 
settlers had made clearings. All judged the soil as 
worthless as the deep sand in the highway. Where 
some settler did clear up a farm, his labors presented 
no inviting spectacle to the passing traveller. If 
manm-e was known in those days, the farmer did not 
appear to value it, for he neither manufactured nor 



124: TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

used it. Phosphates and fertilizers had not been 
dreamed of. If he spread any fertilizer over his 
fields, it was but a starveling ration ; hence his corn 
crop . was a harvest of nubbins. Wheat he never 
thought of raising ; rye was the sole winter grain, 
and rye bread, rye mush, and rye pie-crust, held un- 
contested dominion, squalid condiments as they all 
are, in each equally squalid farm-house. Eagweed 
and pigweed took alternate possession of the fields ; 
cultivation was at its last point of attenuation ; none 
grew rich, while all became poor ; and as autumn 
came on, even the ordinarily thoughtless grasshopper 
climbed feebly up to the abounding mullein top, and 
with tears in his eyes surveyed the melancholy 
desolation around him. Such is a true picture of the 
king's highway up to the building of the Camden 
and Amboy Railroad. 

No wonder that the great public who traversed it 
through this part of Kew Jersey should think it, and 
speak of it everywhere, as being all sand, seeing that 
in their passage through it they beheld but little 
else. Hence, the reputation thus early established 
continues to the present day, and the tradition has 
been incorporated into the public vernacular. The 
sandy road alone was seen, while the green and 
fertile tracts that lay beyond and around it were 
unknown, because unseen. Like the traveller from 
Dan to Beersheba, the cry was that all was barren. 
But time, improvement, education, railroads, and the 
marvellous growth of Philadelphia, New York, and 
fifty intermediate towns, have changed all this as by 
enchantment. Every mile of the old highway is now 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 125 

a splendid gravel turnpike, intersected by a dozen 
similar roads, wliich stretcli away np into the country. , 
As good roads invite settlement, so population, the 
great promoter of the value of land, has come in 
rapidly, and changed the aspect of every farm-house. 
Good fences line the roadside, rank hedge-rows have 
disappeared, new farm houses have been everywhere 
built, low lands have been drained, manures have 
been imported from the cities, wheat is now the 
staple winter-grain, rye has ceased to be cultivated, 
and rye bread is now a mere reminiscence of the old 
dispensation. But chief, perhaps, of all, the whole 
agricultural world of l^ew Jersey has been educated 
by the agricultural press to a high standard of intel- 
ligence and enterprise. Its labors have led to the 
establishment of numerous extensive nurseries, by 
the pressure of a general demand for trees and 
smaller fruits, whose wilderness of blossoms now 
annually bluSh and brighten upon every farm. It 
has taught them to cultivate new vegetables and 
fruits for city consumption alone, salable for cash 
in each successive month ; in doing which, they have 
changed from a poverty-stricken to a money-making 
generation. It has taught them, what none pre- 
viously believed, that no good farming can be done 
without high manuring, and banished the ignorance 
and meanness that prevented them from spending 
money to secure it. It has introduced to their 
notice new and portable manures, improved tools, 
better breeds of stock of all kinds, and sharpened 
their perceptions, until they have now become men 
of business as well as farmers, and so proved its 



126 . TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

value to them, that he upon whose table no agricul- 
tural journal can be found, may be written down as 
the laggard of a progressive age. 

But in addition to all these stimulants to progress 
the Camden and Amboy Eailroad came in, giving it 
a vast momentum. Terminating at Philadelphia and 
New York, it opened up a cash market among thou- 
sands asking for daily bread. When this road was 
first opened, its annual way-freight yielded less than 
one hundred dollars a year. But its managers wisely 
built station-houses at every cross-road, as the farm- 
ers called for them. To these nuclei the produce 
of entire townships quickly gathered in astonishing 
quantities. Agents from the great cities traversed 
the country, and bought every thing that was for sale. 
A cash market being brought to their very doors, 
where none had previously existed, an immense stim- 
ulus to production followed, and a new spirit was 
infused into the whole region. Hundreds of farms 
were renovated, cleared of foul weeds, drained, and 
liberally manured. New vegetables were cultivated. 
Tomatoes, peas, rhubarb, and early potatoes rose into 
prime staples. Green corn has been taken from a 
single county to the extent of two thousand tons 
daily. Other products go to market by thousands of 
baskets at a time. Way-trains are run for the sole 
accommodation of this truck business, stopping every 
few miles to take in the waiting contributions col- 
lected at the stations. To both railroad and farmer it 
has proved a highly remunerating traffic. These 
way-freights, thus wisely cultivated by the railroad, 
now amount to many thousands annually, and are 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 127 

steadily growing larger. Meantime, steamboats on 
the Delaware stop several times daily at new wharves 
on the river, sometimes taking at one trip two thou- 
sand baskets of trnck, from a point where, twelve years 
ago, the same nmiiber could not be gathered dnring 
an entire season. The grower thus has the choice of* 
the two richest markets in the country. He reaches 
Philadelphia in one hour, and New York in three. 

It must be manifest that crops of such magnitude 
cannot be produced on mere sand. Hence the tradi- 
tional notion that E'ew Jersey is a sand heap, desolate 
and barren at that, has long been proved to be a 
fallacy. Men do not grow rich upon a burning 
desert, such as this region has been described. Yet 
the farmers who occupy it are notoriously becoming 
BO. They lend money annually on mortgage, after 
spending thousands in manure, while farms have ad- 
vanced from $30 to $100 and $200 per acre. The 
last ten years have added thirty per cent, to the popu- 
lation. Schools, churches, and towns have propor- 
tionately increased in number. 

The soil of this truck region contains a large pro- 
portion of sand with loam, on which manure acts 
with an energetic quickness that brings all early 
truck into the great markets in advance of the neigh- 
boring country. This secures high prices. Southern 
competition has only stimulated the growers to in- 
creased exertion. Though from this cause losing 
some of the high rewards of former years, yet the 
aggregate of profit does not seem to diminish. Bet- 
ter cultivation, higher manuring, changing one prod- 
uct for another, with more land brought into tillage, 



^. 



128 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

enable them to foot up as large an amonnt of sales 
at the end of the season as aforethne. They see that 
the world cannot be overfed, and that any thing they 
can produce will command a ready market. Con- 
sumers increase annually, and the public appetite 
loses none of its rampant fierceness. Hence, com- 
petition stimulates instead of discouraging. 

A vast area is planted with tomatoes. Though 
thousands of bushels perish every season, yet two 
hundred, and even four hundred dollars an acre is 
frequently the clear profit. Thirty years ago, three 
bunches of rhubarb were brouc-ht to the London 
market for sale, but as no one could be found to buy 
them, they were given away ; yet London now con- 
sumes seven thousand tons annually. So, in 'New 
Jersey — the planter of the first half acre was pitied 
for his temerity. Kow, there are hundreds of acres 
of rhubarb. The production of peas, pickles, cu- 
cumbers, melons, and cabbages is immense. Early 
corn is raised in vast quantities. All these various 
products command x?ash on delivery. 

The soil of this region has long been famous for 
its growth of melons. Formerly they were raised by 
ship-loads, but Southern competition has checked 
their production. Yet I^ew Jersey citrons possess a 
flavor so exquisite, that they cannot be driven from 
tlie market. Peaches have long since become almost 
obsolete, the yellows and the worm having been great 
discouragements. But within three years, hundreds 
of acres of them have been planted in Kew Jersey, 
and the nurseries find ready sale, in seasons of aver- 
age prosperity, for all they can produce. I^umerous 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 129 

orchards will annuallj come into bearing; and tlie 
cliances are that this once famous staple will again be 
domesticated in its ancient stronghold. Among the 
smaller fruits, strawberries occupy an important place 
in 'New Jersey, whose soil seems peculiarly adapted 
to them. The yield per acre is enormous. One 
grower has gathered 400 bushels from three acres of 
the Albany seedling. He began his plantation with 
a single dozen plants, at $2.50 per dozen. ISTew 
York and Philadelphia took them all at an average 
of eighteen cents a quart. This patch was a marvel 
to look at. The ground appeared fairly red with 
berries of great size, and were so abundant that 
pickers abandoned other fields at two cents a quart, 
and volunteered to pick this at one and a half. Other 
neighboring growers realized large returns. The two 
counties of Burlington and Monmouth are believed 
to yield more berries of all kinds than any district 
of equal area in the Union, and the cultivation is 
rapidly extending. 

A year or two ago, somebody invented and 
patented a new box for taking them to market, 
lighter, neater, cheaper than the old one, and secur- 
ing thorough ventilation to the fruit. A club of 
Connecticut men forthwith organized a company w^ith 
a capital of $10,000 for manufacturing them ; built 
a factory, started an engine, and now have forty 
hands at work. An agent of the company went 
through the State last fall, from Middletown to Cam- 
den, showing samples, and taking orders. He sold 
three hundred thousand boxes, many to those who 
had the old ones, but more to others just wanting 



130 TEN ACEE8 ENOUGH. 

them. As lie travelled on foot, with samples in his 
hand, he inquired his way over the country, from 
farm to farm, and probably discovered every grower 
of an acre of berries. Of course he could not fail to 
visit and supply me. He gave me many curious 
items of information touching the extent of the berry 
business. There are parties in this country who have 
fifty acres of strawberries on a single farm, with a 
thousand dollars invested merely in the small boxes 
in which they are taken to market. He reports 
that the two counties of Burlington and Monmouth 
produce more berries than all the remainder of the 
State. Strawberries and raspberries are now the 
staples, to which the blackberry has recently been 
added. The great consuming stomach of the large 
cities, having long been fed on these delicious fruits, 
must continue to buy. Growers seem to know that 
after thirty years' propagation of the strawberry, this 
devouring stomach has never been surfeited, — that 
the more it is fed the more it consumes. 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 131 



CHAPTEE XY. 



One morning in September, hearing shots fired 
repeatedly • at the further end of my grounds, and 
proceeding thither to ascertain the canse, I dis- 
covered thi'ee great, overgrown boobies, with guns 
in their hands, trampling down my strawberries, 
and shooting bluebirds and robins. On inquiring 
where they belonged, they answered in the next 
township. I suggested to them that I thought their 
own township was quite large enough to keep its 
own loafers, without sending them to depredate on 
me, warned them never to show themselves on my 
premises again, and then drove them out. This 
happened to be the only occasion on which I was 
invaded by any of the worthless, loafing tribe of 
gunners, who roam over some neighborhoods, en- 
gaged in the manly occupation of killing tomtits and 
catbirds. 

For all such my aversion was as decided as my 
partiality for the birds was strong. One of the little 
amusements I indulged in immediately on taking- 
possession of my farm, was to put up at least tw^enty 
little rough contrivances about the premises, in 
which the birds might build. Knowing their value 
as destroyers of insects, I was determined to protect 
them ; and thus, aromid the dwelling-house, in tho 



132 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

garden-trees, and upon the sides of the barn, as well 
as in other places which promised to be popular, I 
placed boxes, calabashes, and squashes for them to 
occupy. The wrens and bluebirds took to them 
with gratifying readiness, built, and reared their 
families. But I observed that the wren quickly 
took possession of every one in which the hole was 
just large enough to admit himself, and too small to 
allow the bluebird to enter; while in those large 
enough to admit a bluebird no wren would build. 
This was because the bluebird has a standing spite 
against the wrens, which leads him to enter the 
nests of the latter, whenever possible, and destroy 
their eggs. Almost any number of wrens may thus 
be attracted round the house and garden, where 
they act as vigilant destroyers of insects. 

These interestins; creatures soon hatched out lar.o^e 
broods of young, to provide food for which they 
were incessantly on the wing. They became sur- 
prisingly tame and familiar, those especially which 
were nearest the house, and in trees beneath which 
the family were constantly passing. We watched 
their movements through the season with increasing 
interest. 'No cat was permitted even to approach 
their nests, no tree on which a family was domiciled 
was ever jarred or shaken ; and the young children, 
instead of regarding them as game to be frightened 
off, or hunted, caught, and killed, were educated to 
admire and love them. Indeed, so carefully did we 
observe their looks and motions, that many times I 
felt almost sure that I could identify and recognize 
the tenants of particular boxes. They ranged over 



. TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 133 

tlie whole extent of my ten acres, clearing the 
bushes and vegetables of insects and worms ; while 
the garden, in which they sang and chattered from 
daybreak nntil sunset, was kept entirely clear of the 
destroyers. I encountered them at the furthest 
extremity of my domain, peering under the peach- 
leaves, flitting from one tomato-vine to another, 
almost as tame as those at home. They must have 
known me, and felt safe from harm. I am per- 
suaded that' I recognized them. Yet it was at this 
class of useful birds that the boobies calling them- 
selves sportsmen were aiming their weapons, when I 
routed them from the premises, and forbid the mur- 
derous foray. 

Insects are, occasionally, one of the farmer's great- 
est pests. But high, thorough farming is a potent 
destroyer. It is claimed by British writers to be a 
sure one. When the average produce of wheat in 
England was only twenty bushels per acre, the 
ravages of the insect tribe were far more general 
and destructive than they have been since the 
average has risen to forty bushels per acre. Why 
may not the cultivation of domestic birds like these, 
that nestle round the house and garden, where 
insects mostly congregate, be considered an impor- 
tant feature in any system of thorough farining ? 

Besides the wrens and bluebirds, the robins built 
under the eaves of the wood-shed, and became 
exceedingly tame. The more social swallow took 
possession of every convenient nestling-place about 
the barn, while troops of little sparrows came con- 
fidingly to the kitchen door to pick up the crumbs of 



134: TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

bread wMcli the children scattered on the pavement 
as soon as they discovered that these innocent little 
creatures were fond of them. Thus my premises 
became a sort of open aviary, in which a multitude 
of birds were cultivated with assiduous care, and 
where they shall be even more assiduously domesti- 
cated, as long as I continue to be lord of the manor. 
I pity the man who can look on these things, 
who can listen to the song of wrens, the loud, 
inspiring carol of the robin on the tree-top, as the 
setting sun gilds its utmost extremities, listening to 
these vocal evidences of animal comfort and enjoy- 
ment, without feeling any augmentation of his own 
pleasures, and that the lonesome blank which some- 
times hangs around a rural residence is thus grate- 
fully filled. 

One morning, hearing a great clamor and turmoil 
in a thicket in the garden, where a nest of orioles 
had been filled with young birds, I cautiously 
approached to discover the cause. A dozen orioles 
were hovering about in great excitement, and for 
some time it was impossible to discover the meaning 
of the trouble. But remaining perfectly quiet, so as 
not to increase the disturbance, I at length dis- 
covered an oriole, whose wing had become so en- 
tangled in one end of a long string which formed 
part of the nest that she could not escape. The 
other birds had also discovered her condition, and 
hence their lamentation over a misfortune they were 
unable to remedy. But they did all they could, 
and were assiduously bringing food to a nest full of 
■Voracious young ones, as well as feeding the impris- 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 135 

oned parent. I was so struck with the interesting 
spectacle that my family were called ont to witness 
it ; then, having gazed npon it a few moments, I 
cautiously approached the prisoner, took her in my 
hands, carefully untied and then cut away the 
treacherous string, and let the frightened warbler go 
free. She instantly flew up into her nest, as if to 
see that all her callow brood were safe, gave us 
a song of thanks, and immediately the crowd of 
sympathizing birds, as if conscious that the difiiculty 
no longer existed, flew away to their respective nests. 

It takes mankind a great while to learn the ways 
of Providence, and to understand that things are 
better contrived for him than he can contrive them 
for himself. Of late, the people are beginning to 
learn that they have mistaken the character of most 
of the little birds, and have not understood the 
object of the Almighty in creating them. They are 
the friends of those who plant, and sow, and reap. 
It has been seen that they live mostly on insects, 
which are among the worst enemies of the agricul- 
turist ; and that if they take now and then a grain 
of wheat, a grape, a cherry, or a strawberry, they 
levy but a small tax for the immense services ren- 
dered. In this altered state of things, legislatures 
are passing laws for the protection of little birds, 
and increasing the penalties to be enforced upon the 
bird-killers. 

A farmer in my neighborhood came one day 
to borrow a gun for the purpose of killing some 
yellow-birds in his field of wheat, which he said 
were eating up the grain. I declined to loan the 



136 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

gun. In order, however, to gratify his curiosity, I 
shot one of them, opened its crop, and found in 
it two hundred weevils, and but four grains of 
wheat, and in these four grains the weevil had bur- 
rowed! This was a most instructive lesson, and 
worth the life of the poor bird, valuable as it w^as. 
This bird resembles the canary, and sings finely. 
One fact like this affords an eloquent text for 
sermonizing, for the benefit of the farmers and others 
wlio may look upon little birds as inimical to their 
interests. Every hunter and farmer ought to know 
that there is hardly a bird that fiies that is not 
a friend of the farmer and gardener. 

Some genial spirits have given the most elaborate 
attention to the question of the vahie of birds. One 
gentleman took his position some fifteen feet from 
the nest of an oriole, in the top of a peach-tree, to 
observe his habits. The nest contained four young 
ones, well fiedged, which every now and then would 
stand upon the edge of the nest to try their wings. 
The}^ were, therefore, at an age which required the 
largest supply of food. This the parents furnished 
at intervals of two to six minutes, throughout the 
day. They lighted on the trees, the vines, the grass, 
and other shrubbery, clinging at times to the most 
extreme and delicate points of the leaves, in search 
of insects. Nothing seemed to come amiss to these 
sharp eyed foragers — grasslioppers, caterpillars, 
worms, and the smaller flies. Sometimes one, and 
sometimes as many as six, were plainly fed to the 
young ones at once. They would also carry awa} 
the refuse litter from the nest, and drop it many 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 13 Y 

yards off. A little figuring gives tlie result of this 
incessant warfare against the insects. ^ For only 
eight working hours it will be 1000 worms de- 
stroyed by a single pair of birds. But if a hundred 
pairs be domesticated on the premises, the destruc- 
tion will amount to 100,000 daily, or 3,000,000 a 
month ! 

This may seem to be a mere paper calculation, 
but the annals of ornithology are crowded with con- 
firmator}^ facts. The robin is accused of appropri- 
ating the fruit which he has protected during the 
growing season from a cloud of enemies. Ihit his 
principal food is spiders, beetles, caterpillars, worms, 
and larvae. Nearly 200 larvae have been taken from 
the gizzard of a single bird. He feeds voraciously 
on those of the destructive worm. In July he takes 
a few strawberries, cherries, and pulpy fruits gen- 
erally, more as a dessert than any thing else, because 
it is invariably found to be largely intermixed with 
insects. Robins killed in the country, at a distance 
from gardens and fruit-trees, are found to contain 
less stone-fruit than those near villages ; showing 
that this bird is not an extensive forager. If our 
choicest fruits are near at hand, he takes a small 
toll of them, but a small one only. In reality, a 
very considerable part of every crop of grain and 
fruit is planted, not for the mouths of our children, 
but for the fly, the curculio, and the canker-worm, 
or some other of these pests of husbandry. Science 
has done something, and will no doubt do more, to 
alleviate the plague. It has already taught us not 
to wage equal war on the wheat-fly and the parasite 



138 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

which preys upon it ; and it will, perhaps, even- 
tually persuade those who need the lesson, that a 
few jjeas and cherries are well bestowed by way of 
dessert on the cheerful little warblers, who turn our 
gardens into concert-rooms, and do so much to aid 
us in the warfare against the grubs and caterpillars, 
which form their principal meal. 

But if the subject of the value of insect-destroy- 
ing birds has been so much overlooked in this 
countr}^, it is not so in Europe. It has been brought 
formally before the French Senate, and is now 
befwe the French government. Learned commis- 
sioners have reported upon it, and it is by no means 
improbable that special legislation will presently 
follow. The inquiry has been conducted with an 
elaborate accuracy characteristic of French legis- 
lation. Insects and birds have been carefully clas- 
sified according to their several species ; their habits 
of feeding have been closely observed, and the 
results ascertained and computed. It has been con- 
cluded that by no agency, save that of little birds, 
can the ravages of insects be kept down. There are 
some birds which live exclusively upon insects and 
grubs, and the quantity which the}^ destroy is 
enormous. There are others which live partly on 
grubs, and partly on grain, doing some damage, but 
providing an abundant compensation. A third class 
— the Birds of Prey — are excepted from the cate- 
gory of benefactors, and are pronounced, too pre- 
cipitately we think, to be noxious, inasmuch as 
they live mostly upon the smaller birds. One class 
is a match for the other. A certain insect was found 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



139 



to lay 2,000 eggs, but a single torn-tit was found to 
eat 200,000 eggs a year. A swallow devours about 
543 insects a day, eggs and all. A sparrow's nest, 
in the city of Paris, was found to contain 700 pairs 
of the upper wings of cockchafers, though, of course, 
in such a place food of other kinds was procurable 
in abundance. It will easily be seen, therefore, 
wliat an excess of insect life is produced when a 
counterpoise like this is withdrawn ; and the statis- 
tics before us show clearly to what an extent the 
balance of nature has been disturbed. A third, and 
wholly artificial class of destroyers has been intro- 
duced. Every chasseur^ during the season, kills, it 
IS said, from 100 to 200 birds daily. A single child 
has been known to come home at night with 100 
birds' eggs, and it has been calculated and reported 
that the number of birds' eggs destroyed annually 
in France is between 80,000,000 and 100,000,000. 
The result is, that little birds in that country are 
actually dying out ; some species have already dis- 
appeared, and others are rapidly diminishing. But 
there is another consequence. The French crops 
have suffered terribly from the superabundance of 
insect vermin. Not only the various kinds of grain, 
but the vines, the olives, and even forest trees, tell 
the same tale of mischief, till at length the alarm 
has become serions. Birds are now likely to be 
protected ; indeed their rise in public estimation has 
been signally rapid. Some philosopher has declared, 
and the report quotes the saying as a profound one, 
that " the birds can live without man, but man can- 
not live without the birds." * 



14:0 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

The same results are being experienced in this 
country, and our whole agricultural press, as well 
as the experience of every fruit-grower and gardener, 
testifies to the fact that our fruit is disappearing as 
the birds upon our premises are permitted to perish. 
Every humane and prudent man will therefore do 
his utmost to preserve them. 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 141 



CHAPTEK XYI. 

CLOSE OF MY FIRST YEAR — ITS LOSS AND GAIN. 

It was now the dead of winter. Every thing was 
frozen up ; but though cheerless without, it was far 
from being so within. My L'ttle library, well sup- 
plied with books and the literature of the day, 
afforded me an intellectual banquet which nev^r 
palled upon the appetite. Here my desk was ever 
open; here pen, and ink, and diary were constantly 
at hand, for entering down my exj)enditures and 
receipts, with facts and observations for future use. 
Thus conveniently provided, and all my life accus- 
tomed to accounts, I found no difficulty at the year's 
end in ascertaining to a dollar whether my first 
season's experience had been one of loss or gain. I 
give the particulars in full — 

Cost of stable manure and ashes $248.00 

Plaster and guano, not all used 20.00 

Ploughing, harrowing, and digging up the garden 30.00 

Cabbage and tomato plants 30.00 

Loss on my first cow 7.00 

Garden seeds 8.00 

Cost of six pigs 12.00 

Corn-meal and bran 28.00 

Dick's wages for six months 72.00 

$455.00 
Here was an outlay of $455, all of which was 



142 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

likely to occur every year, except the two items of 
loss on cow, and cost of buying cabbages and 
tomato-plants, which have subsequently been raised 
in a hotbed at home, without costing a dollar. The 
great item is in manure, amounting to $268 ; and 
this must be kept at the same figure, if not increased, 
unless an equal quantity can, by some process, be 
manufactm-ed at home. 

Then there was the following permanent outlay 
made in stocking the farm with fruit : 

Strawberries for six acres $120.00 

Raspberries for two acres 34.00 

804 Peacli-trees, and planting tbem 72.36 

$226.36 

This constituted a permanent investment of capi- 
tal, and would not have to be repeated, so that the 
actual cost the first year was, as stated, $455. My 
own time and labor are not charged, because that 
item is adjusted in the grand result of whether the 
farm supported me or not. There was also the cost 
of horse and cow, ploughs, and other tools ; but 
these, too, were investments, not expenses. They 
could be resold for money, no doubt, at some loss. 
A portion of that capital could therefore be re- 
covered. So, also, with the large item of $226.36, 
invested in standard fruits ; as, if the farm were sold, 
its being stocked with them would insure its bring- 
ing a higher price in consequence, probably enough 
to refund the capital thus invested. 

It is fair, therefore, to charge the current expenses 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 143 

only against the current receipts. The latter were as 
follows : 

Sales of blackberry plants $460.00 

" cabbages 82.00 

" tomatoes 120.00 

" garden products 80.00 

" pork 49.00 

$791.00 
Current expenses, as stated 455.00 

Profit 836.00 

This was abont $1.25 per day for the two hundred 
and seventy-five, days we had been in the country, 
from April 1st to January 1st, and, when added 
to our copious supplies of vegetables, fruit, pork, 
and milk, it kept the family in abundance. I 
proved this by a very simple formula. I knew 
exactly how much cash I had on hand when I 
began in April, and from that amount deducted 
the cost of all my permanent investments in stand- 
ard fruits, stock, and implements, and found that the 
remainder came within a few cents of the balance on 
hand in January. I did not owe a dollar, and had 
food enough to keep my stock till spring. The 
season had been a good one for me, and we felt the 
greatest encouragement to persevere, as the first 
difiiculties had been overcome, and the second season 
promised to be much more profitable. I considered 
the problem as very nearly solved. 

It will be noted that no cash was received for 
strawberries, and herein is involved a fact important 
to be known and acted on by tlie growers of this 



144 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

fruit. Most men, when planting them, say in March 
or April, are impatient for a crop in June. But this 
should never be allowed. As soon as the blossoms 
appear, they should be removed. The newly trans- 
planted vine has work enongh thrown npon its roots 
in repairing the damage it has suffered in being 
removed from one location to another, without 
being compelled, in addition, to mature a crop 
of fruit. To require it to do both is imposing 
on the roots a task they are many times unable 
to perform. The draft upon them by the ripening 
fruit is more than they can bear. I have known 
large fields of newly-planted vines perish in a dry 
season from this cause alone. The writers on straw- 
berry culture sometimes recommend removing the 
blossoms the first year, but not with snfiicient ur- 
gency. I lay it down as absolutely indispensable 
to the establishment of a robust growth. Thus 
believing, my blossoms were all clipped off with 
scissors; and hence, though stronger plants were 
thus produced, yet there was no fruit to sell. 

It must also be remembered that my entire profit 
consisted of the single item of sales of plants ; hence, 
if there had been no demand for Lawtons, or if I had 
happened to have none for sale, there wonld have 
been an actual loss. My having them was a mere 
accident, and my luck in this respect was quite 
exceptional. Unless others happen to be equally 
lucky, they may set down their first year as very 
certain to yield no profit. "With persons as inex- 
perienced as I was when beginning, no other result 
should be expected. 



TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 145 

"Winter is proverbially the farmer's holiday. But 
it was no idle time with me. I had too long been 
trained to habits of industry, to lounge about the 
house simply because no weeds could be found to 
kill. The careful man will find a world of fixing up 
to do for winter. As it came on slowly through a 
gorgeous Indian summer, I set myself to cleaning up 
the litter round the premises, and put the garden 
into the best condition for the coming season. The 
verbenas had gone from the borders; the petunias 
had withered on the little mound whereon their red 
and white had flashed so gayly in captivating con- 
trast during the summer ; the delicate cypress- vine 
had blackened at the touch of a single frosty night ; 
the lady-slipper hung her flowery head ; all the fam- 
ily of roses had faded ; the morning-glory had with- 
ered ; even the hardy honeysuckle had been frozen 
cris^. From the fruit-trees a cloud of leaves had 
fallen upon every garden-walk. Plants that needed 
housing were carefully potted, and taken under 
cover. The walks were cleared of leaves by trans- 
ferring them to the barnyard. Bushes, trees, and 
vines were trimmed. Every remnant of decay was 
removed. The December sunshine fell upon a gar- 
den so trim and neat, that even in the bleakest day 
it was not unpleasant to wander through its alleys, 
and observe those wintry visitants, the snow-birds, 
gathering from the bushes their scanty store of 
favorite seeds. The asparagus was covered deeply 
with its favorite manure, and heavily salted. Ten- 
der roses were banked up with barnyard scrapings, 



14:6 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

and every delicate plant protected for its long season 
of hybernation. 

Dick had his share of exemption from excessive 
labor. But I kept him tolerably busy for weeks 
in gathering np the clond of leaves which fell 
throughout the neighborhood from roadsides lined 
with trees. ISTo manure is so well worth saving 
in October and November as the falling leaves. 
They contain nearly three times as much nitrogen 
as ordinary barnyard manure ; and every gardener 
who has strewn and covered them in his trenches 
late in the fall or in December, must have noticed 
the next season how black and moist the soil is that 
adheres to the thrifty young beets he pulls. No 
vegetable substance yields its woody libre and be- 
comes soluble quicker than leaves; and, from this 
very cause, they are soon dried up, scattered to 
the winds, and wasted, if not now gathered and 
trenched in, or composted, before the advent of 
severe winter. 

My horse, and cow, and pigs, all slept in leaves. 
Their beds were warm and easy, and the saving 
of straw for litter was an item. As they were 
abundant, and very convenient, Dick carted to the 
barnyard an enormous quantity. Placing enough 
of them under cover, he littered all the stock witn 
them until spring. The remainder was composted 
with the contents of the barnyard, and thus made a 
very important addition to my stock of manure. 
Thus the leaf-harvest is one of importance to the 
farmer, if he will but avail himself of it. A calm 
day or two spent in this business will enable him 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 147 

to get together a large pile of these fallen leaves ; 
and if stowed in a dry place, lie will experience tlie 
good effects of tliem in the improved condition of 
his stock, compared with those which are suffered to 
lie down, and perhaps be frozen down, in their own 
filth. The fertilizing material of leaves also adds 
essentially to the enriching qualities of the manure- 
heap. Gardeners prize highly a compost made in 
part of decomposed leaves. The leaf-harvest is tlie 
last harvest of the year, and should be thoroughly 
attended to at the proper time. 

The leisure of the season gave us greater opportu- 
nity for intercourse, both at home and abroad. The 
city was comparatively at our door, as accessible 
as ever — we were really mere suburbans. We ran 
down in an hour to be spectators of any unusual 
sight, and frequently attended the evening lectures 
of distinguished men. It w^as impossible for the 
world to sweep on, leaving us to stagnate. How 
different this winter seemed to me from any pre- 
ceding one ! Formerly, this long season had been 
one of constant toiling ; now, it was one of almost 
uninterrupted recreation. How different the path I 
travelled from that in which ambition hurries for- 
ward — too narrow for friendship, too crooked for 
love, too rugged for honesty, and too dark foi 
science ! Thus, if we choose, we may sandwich in 
the poetry with the prose of life. Thus, many a 
dainty happiness and relishing enjoyment may come 
between the slices of every-day w^ork, if we only so 
determine. 



148 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



CHAPTEE XYII. 

]VIY SECOND TEAR TRENCHING THE GARDEN STRAW- 
BERRY PROFITS. 

Winter having passed away, tlie time for labor 
and tlie singing of birds again returned. Long 
before the land in Pennsylvania was fit to plough, 
the admirable soil of New Jersey had been turned 
over, and planted with early peas. One of its most 
^'aluable peculiarities is that of being at all times fit 
for ploughing, except when actually frozen hard. 
Even after heavy rains, when denser soils require 
a fortnight's drying before getting into condition for 
the jDlough, this is ready in a day or two. Its sandy 
character, instead of being a disadvantage, is one of 
its highest recommendations. It is thus two to 
three weeks earlier in yielding up its ripened prod- 
ucts for market. Peas are the first tilings planted 
in the open fields. The traveller coming from the 
north, when passing by rail to Philadelphia through 
this genial region, has been frequently surprised 
at seeing the young pea-vines peeping up above a 
thin covering of snow, their long rows of delicate 
green stretching across extensive fields, and present- 
ing a singular contrast with the fleecy covering 
around them. Naturally hardy, they survive the 
cold, and as the snow rapidly disappears they imme- 
diately renew their growth. 



TEIs" ACKES ENOUGH. 149 

Having been mncli surprised by the profit yielded 
last year from tlie garden, I was determined to give 
it a better chance than ever, and to try the eliect of 
thorough farming on a limited scale. I accordingly 
set Dick to covering it fully three inches deep with 
well-rotted stable-manure, of which I had purchased 
iu the city my usual quantity, $200 worth, though 
hoping that I could so contrive it hereafter as not to 
be obliged to make so heavy a cash outlay for this 
material. I then procured him a spade fifteen inches 
long in the blade, and set him to trenching every 
inch of it not occupied by standard fmits. These 
had luckily been arranged in rows in borders by 
themselves, thus leaving large, open beds, in which 
the operation of trenching could be thoroughly prac- 
tised. I estimated the open ground to be very 
nearly half an acre. I began by digging a trench 
from one end of the open space to the other, three 
feet wide and two deep, removing the earth to the 
further side of the open space. Then the bottom of 
the trench was dug up with the lifteen-inch spade, 
and then covered lightly with manure. 

The adjoining ground was then thrown in, mixing 
the top soil as we went along, and also abundance 
of manure, until the trench was filled. As the earth 
thus used was all taken from the adjoining strip of 
three feet wide, of course, when the trench was full, 
another of corresponding size appeared beside it. 
With this tlie operation was repeated until all the 
garden had been thoroughly gone over. The earth 
which had been removed from the fi.rst trench, went 
into the last one. But I was careful not to place the 



150 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

top soil ill a body at the bottom, but scattered it 
well through the whole of the filling. If rich, the 
roots of every plant would find some portion of it, 
let them travel wliere they might. On the whole 
job we bestowed a great amount of care, but it was 
such a job as would not require repeating for years, 
and would be permanently beneficial. I thus depos- 
ited $50 worth of manure, as a fund of nourishment 
on which my vegetables could for a long time draw 
with certainty of profit. 

ISTo^v, a surface soil of a few^ inches only, will not 
answer for a good garden. The roots of succulent 
vegetables must extend into a deeper bed of fertil- 
ity; and a greater depth of pulverization is required 
to absorb surplus rains, and to give ofi* the accumu- 
lated moisture in dry weather. A shallow soil will 
become deluged by a single shower, because the 
hard subsoil will not allow it to pass downward ; 
and again, in the heat and drought of midsummer, 
a thin stratum is made dry and parched in a week, 
Avhile one of greater depth becomes scarcely afiected. 
I might cite numerous instances, besides my own, 
where trenched gardens remained in the finest state 
of luxuriance during the most severe droughts, when 
others under ordinary management Avere nearly 
burnt up with the heat, grow^th having quite ceased, 
and leaves curled and witherins: for want of mois- 



ture. 



The mode of trenching must vary with circum- 
stances. In small, circumscribed pieces of ground, 
necessity requires it to be done by hand, as has been 
just described. In large spaces the subsoil plough 



TFN ACRES ENOUGH. 151 

may be used, but not to equal benefit. There are 
many reasons Avby the soils of gardens should be 
made better than for ordinary lariu-crops. Most 
of the products of gardens are of a succulent nature, 
or will otherwise bear high feeding, such as garden 
roots in general, plants whose leaves furnish food, 
as salad, cabbages, &c., or those which produce 
large and succulent fruits, as cucumbers, melons, 
squashes, -(fee. As nearly all garden crops are the 
immediate food of man, while many farm-crops are 
only the coarser food of animals, greater care and 
skill may properly be applied in bringing the for- 
mer forw^ard to a high degree of perfection. The 
great amount of family supplies which may be 
obtained from a half-acre garden, provided the best 
soil is prepared for their growth, renders it a matter 
of equal importance and economy to give the soil 
the very best preparation. 

It rarely happens that there is much selection to 
be made in soils as we find them in nature, for gar- 
dening purposes, unless particular attention is given 
to the subject in choosing a site for a new dwelling. 
Generally, we have to take the land as we find it. 
Unless, therefore, we happen to find it just right, 
we should endeavor to improve it in the best man- 
ner. The principal means for making a perfect 
garden soil, are draining, trenching, and manuring. 
Xow, let none be startled at the outset with the fear 
of cost, in thus })reparing the soil. The entire ex- 
pense of preparing half an acre would not, in gen- 
eral, amount to more than the amount saved in a 
single year in the purchase of food for family sup- 



152 TEN ACRKS ENOUGH. 

plies, by the fine and abundant vegetables afforded. 
If the owner cannot possibly prepare his half or 
quarter acre of land properly, then let him occupy 
the ground with something else than garden crops, 
and take only a single square rod (if he cannot 
attend to more), and give this the most perfect 
preparation. A square rod of rich, luxuriant vege- 
tables, will be found more valuable than eighty rods, 
or half an acre of scant, dwarfed, and stringy growth, 
which no one will wish to eat; while the extra cost 
and labor spent on the eighty rods in seeds, digging, 
and hoeing, Avould have been more than sutHcient to 
prepare the smaller plot in the most complete man- 
ner. Let the determinatton be made, therefore, at 
the commencement, to take no more land than can 
be properly prepared, and in the most thorough 
manner. 

The ten peach-trees in the garden were thoroughly 
manured by digging in around them all the coal 
ashes made during the winter, first sifting them well. 
No stable manure was added, as it promotes too 
rank and watery a growth in the peach, while ashes 
of any kind are what this fruit most delights in. 
Then the butts vv^ere examined for worms, but the 
last year's application of tar had kept off the fly, and 
the old ravages of the enemy v- ere found to be nearly 
healed over by the growth of new bark. A fresh 
coating of tar was applied, and thus every thing was 
made safe. 

As the season advanced, my wife and daughter 
took charge of the garden, as usual, and with high 
hopes of greater success than ever. They had had 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 153 

one year's experience, while now the ground was in 
far better condition. Moreover, they seemed to have 
forgotten all about the weeds, as in calculating their 
prospective profits they did not mention them even 
once. I was careful not to do so, though I had my 
ov>'n suspicions on the subject. AYhen the planting 
had been done, and things went on growing finely 
as the season advanced, they were suddenly re- 
minded of their ancient enemy. The trenching and 
manuring had done as much for the weeds as for the 
vegetables. Why should they not ? In her inno- 
cency, Kate thought the weeds should all have been 
buried in the trenches, as if their seeds had been de- 
posited exclusively on the surface. But they grew 
more rampantly than ever during the entire season, 
and to my mind they seemed to be in greater quan- 
tity. But the fact worked no discouragement to 
either wife or daughter. They waged against them 
the same resolute warfare, early, late, and in the 
noonday sun, until Kate, in spite of a capacious sun- 
bonnet, became a nut-brown maid. Not a weed was 
permitted to flourish to maturity. 

The careful culture of the garden this year gave 
them even a better reward than it had done the year 
before. The failures of the last season were all 
avoided. . Several kinds of seeds were soaked before 
being planted, which prevented failure and secured 
a quicker growth. In addition to this, they raised a 
greater variety of vegetables expressly for the store ; 
and with some, such as radishes and beets, they were 
particularly lucky, and realized high prices for all 
they had to dispose of. Then the high manuring 

7^ 



154 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

and extra care bestowed iijDon the asparagus were 
apparent in the quick and vigorous shooting up of 
thick and tender roots, far more than we coidd con- 
sume, and so superior to any others that were taken 
to the store, that they sold rapidly at city j)rices. 
Thus they began to make sales earlier in the season, 
while their crops were far more abundant. The 
trenching and manuring was evidently a paying in- 
vestment. In addition to all this, the season proved 
to be a good one for fruit. The garden trees bore 
abundantly. My ten peach-trees had by this time 
been rejuvenated, and were loaded with fruit. 
When as large as hickory nuts, I began the opera- 
tion of removing all the smallest, and of thinning 
out unsparingly wherever they were excessively 
crowded. After going over five trees, I brought a 
bucketful of the expurgated peaches to my wife for 
exhibition. She seemed panic-stricken at the sight 
— protested that we should have no peaches that sea- 
son, if I went on at that rate — besought me to re- 
member my peculiar weakness for pies — and pleaded 
so eloquently that the other trees should not be 
stripped, as to induce me, much against my judg- 
ment, to suspend my ravages. Thus ii\e had been 
thinned and five left untouched. 

At the moment, I regretted her interference, but 
as compliance . with her wishes always brought to 
me its own gratification, if not in one way, then in 
some other, so it did in this instance. In the first 
place, the peaches on the five denuded trees grew 
prodigiously larger and finer than those on the other 
five. I gathered them carefully and sent them to 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 155 

tlie city, wliere they brouglit me $41 clear of ex- 
penses, while the fruit from the other trees, sent to 
market witli similar care, netted only $17, and those 
used in the family from the spane trees, estimated at 
the same rates, were worth $9, making, on those 
five, a difference of $15 in favor of thinning. Thus, 
the ten produced $58 ; but if all had been thinned, 
the product would have been $82. 

This unexpected result satisfied my wife ever 
afterwards that it was quality, and not mere quantity, 
that the market wanted. Her own garden sales 
would have convinced her of this, had she observed 
them closely ; but having overlooked results there, it 
required an illustration too striking to be gainsayed, 
and this the peach-trees furnished. All these fig- 
ures appear in Kate's accomit-book. I had pro- 
vided her with one expressly for the garden oper- 
ations, a nice gold pen, and every other possible con- 
venience for making entries at the moment any 
transaction occurred. I had also taught her the sim- 
plest form for keeping her accounts, and caused her 
to keep a pass-book with the store, in which every 
consignment should be entered, so that her book and 
the storekeeper's should be a check on errors that, 
might be found in either. She thus became ex- 
tremely expert at her accounts, and as she took 
especial interest in the matter, could tell from 
memory, at the week's end, how many dollars' worth 
of produce slie had sold. I found the amount run- 
ning up quite hopefully as the season advanced, and 
when it had closed, she announced the total to be 
$63 withou.t the peaches, or $121 by including them. 



15G TEN ACRE3 ENOUGH. 

But slie had paid some money for seeds ; as an offset 
to which, no cash had been expended in digging, as 
Dick and myself had done it all. 

So much for the garden this year. On my nine 
acres of ploughed land there was plenty of work to be 
done. Our old enemy, the w^eeds, did not seem to 
have diminished in number, notwithstanding our 
slaughter the previous year. They came up as thick 
and vigorous as ever, and required quite as much 
labor to master them, as the hoe was oftener re- 
quired among the rows of raspberries and straw- 
berries. My dogged fellow, Dick, took this matter 
with perfect unconcern — said he knew it would bo 
so, and that I would find the weeds could not be 
killed — but he might as well work among them as at 
any thing else. I ceased to argue with him on tlie 
subject, and as I had full faith in coming out right 
in the end, w^as content to silently bide my time. 

' ::i; ■ year I planted an acre with tomatoes, having 
raised abundance of fine plants in a hotbed, as well 
as egg-plants for the garden. I set them out in 
rows, three and one-half feet apart each w^ay, and 
manured them well, twice as heavily as many of my 
neighbors did. This gave me 3,Y60 plants to the 
acre. The product was almost incredible, and 
amounted to 501 bushels, or about five quarts a hill, 
a far better yield than I had had the first year. 
From some hills as many as ten quarts each were 
gathered. I managed to get twenty baskets into 
'New York market among the very first of the sea- 
son, where they netted me $60. The next twenty 
netted $25, the next twenty only $15, as numerous 



TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 



157 



competitors came in, and the next tliirty cleared no 
more. After that the usual glut came on, and down 
went the price to twenty and even fifteen cents. 
But at twenty and twenty-five I continued to for- 
ward to Philadelphia, where they paid better than 
to let them rot on the ground. From 200 baskets 
at these low i^rices I netted $35. Then, in the 
height of the season, all picking was suspended, ex- 
cept for the pigs, who thus had any quantity they 
could consume. But the glut gradually subsided as 
tomatoes perished on the vines, and the price again 
rose in market to twenty-five cents, then to fifty, 
then to a dollar, and upwards. But my single acre 
afibrded me but few at the close of the season. I 
did not manage to realize $40 from the fag-end of 
the year, making a total net yield of $190. 

Others near me, older hands at the business, did 
much better, but I thought this well enough. I 
would prefer raising tomatoes at 37 cents a bushel 
to potatoes at 75. The amount realized from an 
acre far exceeds that of potatoes. A smart man will 
gather from sixty to seventy bushels a day. The 
expense of cultivating, using plenty of manure, is 
about $60 per acre, and the gross yield may be safely 
calculated $250, leaving about $200 sure surplus. 
If it were not for the sudden and tremendous fall in 
prices to which tomatoes are subject soon after tliey 
come into market, growers might become rich in a 
few years. 

Tlie other acre was occupied with corn, roots, and 
cabbage, for winter feeding, with potatoes for family 
use. Turnips were sowed wherever room could be 



158 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

found for tliem, and no spot about tlie farm was per- 
mitted to remain idle. A hill of corn, a cabbage, a 
pnmpkin-vine, or wliatever else was suited to it, was 
planted. But of potatoes we did sell enough to 
amount to $24. On the acre occupied with black- 
berries, early cabbages were planted to the number 
of 4,000. Many of these, of course, were small and 
not marketable, though well manured and carefully 
attended. But all such were very acceptable in the 
barnyard and pig-pen. Of sound cabbages I sold 
3,120, at an average of two and one-quarter cents, 
amounting to $70.20. I cannot tell how it was, but 
other persons close to me raised larger and better 
heads, and of course realized better prices. But I 
had no reason to complain. 

The strawberries came first into market. I had 
labored to allow no runners to grow and take root 
except such as were necessary to fill up the line of 
each row. Most of the others had been clipped off 
as fast as they showed themselves. Thus the whole 
strength of the plant was concentrated into the fruit. 
In other words, I set out to raise fruit, not plants ; 
and my rows were, therefore, composed of single 
stools, standing about four to six inches apart in the 
row. The ground between the rows was conse- 
quently clear for the passage of the horse-weeder, 
which kept it nice and clean throughout the season, 
while there was no sort of difiiculty in getting be- 
tween the stools with either the hand, or a small 
hoe, to keep out grass and weeds. The stools were 
consequently strong and healthy, and stood up 
higher from the ground than plants which grow in 



TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 159 

matted beds, thus measurably keeping clear of the 
sand and grit which heavy rains throw up on berries 
that lie ver^ near the ground. The truth is, the 
ground for a foot all round each stool ought to have 
had a covering of cut straw, leaves, or something 
else for the fruit to rest upon, thus to keep them 
clean, as well as to preserve them from drought. 
But I did not so well understand the question at that 
time as I do now. 

The fruit ripened beautifully, and grew to prodi- 
gious size, larger than most we had ever seen. The 
several pickings of the first week yielded 600 quart 
boxes of the choicest fruit, which I dispatched by 
railroad to an agent in ]S"ew York, with whom I had 
previously made arrangements to receive them. The 
greatest care was used in preparing them for market 
When taken from the vines they were put directly 
into the small boxes, and these carried to the house, 
where, under a large shed adjoining the kitchen, 
my wife and daughters had made preparations to re- 
ceive them. Here they were spread out on a large 
pine table, and all the larger berries separated from 
the smaller ones, each kind being put into boxes 
which were kept separate from the other. The show 
made by fruit thus assorted was truly magnificent^ 
and to the pleasure my wife experienced in handling 
and arranging it, she was constantly testifying. 
Thus 600 quarts of the finest fruit we had ever be- 
held, were sent the first week to 'New York. It was, 
of course, nearly ten days ahead of the season in that 
region — there could be no JS^ew York grown berries 
in market. At the week's end the agent remitted 



160 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

me $300 clear of freight and commission ! They 
had netted me half a dollar a quart. I confess to 
having been greatly astonished and delighted — it 
was certainly twice as mncli as we had expected. 
When I showed the agent's letter to my wife, she 
was qnite amazed. Kate, who had heard a good 
deal of complaint about high prices, while we lived 
in the city, after reading the letter, laid it down, ob- 
serving — 

" I think it will not do to complain of high prices 
now !" 

"No," replied my wife, "the tables are turned. 
Halt' a dollar a quart ! How much I pity those poor 
people." 

And as she said this, 1 handed her a quart bowl 
of the hiscious fruit, which I had been sugaring 
heavily while she was studying out the figures in 
the agent's letter, and I feel persuaded no lover of 
strawberries ever consumed them with a more 
smackino^ relish. 

The agent spoke in his letter of the admirable 
manner in which our berries were forwarded — all 
alike, all uniformly prime large fruit — not merely 
big ones on top of the box as decoys, and as the 
prelude to finding none but little runts at bottom. 
This established for us a reputation ; our boxes could 
be guaranteed to contain prime fruit all through. 
Hence the agent could sell any quantity we could 
send. Indeed, it Avas impossible to send him too 
much. Thus we continued to pick over our vines 
from three to four times w^eekly. As the ripening 
of the fruit went on, the sight was truly marvellous 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 161 

to look at. When the season was at its height, the 
ground seemed almost red with berries. Tlien the 
famous doctrine of squatter sovereignty was effect- 
ually carried out on ray premises, for there were 
twenty girls and boys upon their knees or hams, 
engaged 'in picking berries at two cents a quart. 
Industrious little toilers they were, many of them 
earning from one to two dollars daily. Some pickers 
were women grown, some widows, some even aged 
women. It was a harvest to them also. 

The small boxes were packed in chests each hold- 
ing from twenty-four to sixty, just nicely tilling the 
chest, so that there should be no rattlino^ or shakino: 
about, or spilling over of the fruit. The lid, when 
shut down and fastened, held all snug. These chests 
were taken to the railroad station close by, the same 
afternoon the berries w^ere picked, and reached New 
York the same night. The agents knowing they 
were coming, had them all sold before they arrived, 
and immediately delivering them to the purchasers, 
they in turn delivered to their customers, and thus 
in less than twenty-four hours from the time of 
leaving my ground, they were in the hands of the 
consumers. This whole business of conveying fruit 
to distant markets by steamboat and rail, is thor 
oughly systematized. It is an immense item in the 
general freight-list of the great seaboard railroads, 
constantly growing, and as surely enriching both 
grower and carrier. For the former it insures a 
sale of all his pi'uducts in the highest markets, and 
in fact brings them to his very door. 

Before the building of the Camden and Amboy 



162 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

Railroad no such facilities existed, and consequently 
not a tenth of the fruit and truck now raised in New 
Jersey was then produced. But an outlet being 
thus established, production commenced. Farms 
were manured, their yield increased, and stations 
for the receipt of freight were built at every few 
miles along the railvoad. They continue to increase 
in number up to this day. Lands rose in value, 
better fences weve supplied, new houses built, and 
the whole system of county roads was revolutionized. 
As every thing that could be raised now found a 
cash market, so every convenience for getting it 
there was attended to. Hence, gravel turnpikes 
were built, w^hich, stretching back into the country, 
enabled growers at all seasons to transport their 
products over smooth roads to the nearest station. 
The-e numerous feeders to the great railroad caused 
the income from way-traffic to increase enormously. 
All interests were signally benefited, and a new 
career of improvement for New Jersey was inau- 
gurated. The farmers became rich on lands which 
for generations had kept their former owners poor. 
My agents were punctual in advising me by tlie 
first mail, and sometimes hy telegraph, of the sale 
and price of each consignment, thus keeping me con- 
stantly posted up as to the condition of the market. 
They paid tlie freight on each consignment, deduct- 
ed it from the proceeds, and returned the chests, 
though sometimes with a few small boxes missing, 
a loss to which growers seem to be regularly sub- 
jected, so long as they use a box which they cannot 
afford to give away with the fruit. 1 thus fed the 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 163 

northern cities as long as the price was maintained. 
But, as is the case with all market produce, pi-ices 
gradually declined as otlier growers caine in, for all 
hands sought to sell in the best market. As the 
end of the season is generally a period of very low 
prices, it must be counteracted by every effort to 
secure high ones at the beginning, in this way main- 
taining a remunerative average during the whole. 
Thus, the half dollar per quart which I obtained for 
the first and best, by equalization with lower prices 
through the remainder of the season, was unable to 
raise the average of the whole crop above sixteen 
cents net. But this abundantly satisfied me, as I 
sent to market 5,360 quarts, thus producing $857.60. 
Besides these, we had the satisfaction of making 
generous presents to some particular friends in the 
city, while at home we rioted upon them daily, and 
laid by an extraordinary quantity in the shape of 
preserves for winter use, a luxury which we had 
never indulged in during our residence in the city. 
I may add that during the whole strawberry seasou 
it was observed that our city friends seemed to take 
an extraordinary interest in our proceedings and 
success. They came up to see us even more numer- 
ously than during the dog-days, and no great effort 
was required, no second invitation necessary, to 
induce them to prolong their visits. But we con- 
sidered them entirely excusable, as the strawberries 
and cream were not only unexceptionable, but 
abundant. However, 1 must confess, that in the 
busiest part of the season our female visitors rolled 
up their sleeves, and fell to with my wife and 



164: TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

daughters for hours at a time, aiding them in assort- 
ing and boxing the huge quantities of noble fruit as 
it came in from the field. 

In order to send this fruit to market, I was obliged 
to purchase 3,000 quart boxes, and 50 chests to con- 
tain them. These cost me $200. I could not fill all 
the boxes at each picking, but as one set of boxes 
was aw a J ofi* in market, it was necessary for me to 
have duplicates on hand, in which to pick other 
berries as tliej ripened, without being compelled 
to wait until the first lot of boxes came back. 
Sometimes it was a week or ten days before they 
w^ere returned to me, according as the agent was 
prompt or dilatory. Thus, one supply of boxes 
filled with fruit was constantly going forward, while 
another of empty ones was on the way back. So 
extensive has this berry business become, that I 
could name parties who have as much as $500 to 
$1,500 invested in chests and boxes for the transpor- 
tation of fruit to market. But their profits are 
in proportion to the extent of their investment. 

While on this subject of boxes for the trans]3orta- 
tion of fruit to distant markets, a suggestion occurs 
to me which some ingenious man ma}-^ be able to 
work up into jDrofitable use. It is sometimes quite 
a trouble for the grower to get his chests returned at 
the proper time. Sometimes the agent is careless 
and inattentive, keeps them twice as many days 
as he ought to, when the owner really needs them. 
Sometimes an accident on the railroad delays then* 
return for a week or ten days. In either case, the 
grower is subjected to great inconvenience; and if 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 165 

liis chests fail to return at all, liis ripened frnit will 
perish on his hands for want of boxes in which 
to send them off. It is to be always safe from these 
contingencies that he finds it necessary to keep so 
large a quantity on hand. Then, many of the boxes 
are never returned, the chests coming back only 
half or quarter filled. All this is very unjustly 
made the grower's loss. 

But a r-emedy for this evil can and ought to 
be provided. The trade needs for its use a box 
so cheap that it can afford to give it away. Then, 
being packed in rough, open crates, cheaply put 
together of common lath, with latticed sides, neither 
crates nor boxes need be returned. The grower will 
save the return-freight, and be in no danger of ever 
being short of boxes by the negligence of others. 
This is really a very urgent want of the trade. The 
agent sells by wholesale to the retailer, who takes 
the chest to his stand or store, where he sells the 
contents, one or more boxes to each customer. These 
sometimes have no baskets with them in wliicli to 
empty the berries, and so the retailer, to insure a 
sale, permits the buyer to carry off' the boxes, and 
the latter neglects to return them. In the same way 
they are sent to hotels and boarding-houses, where 
they are lost by hundreds. Again, the obligation 
imposed on a buyer to return the boxes to a retailer, 
is constantly preventing hundreds of chance pur- 
chasers of rare fruit from taking it ; but if the seller 
could say to him that the box goes with the fruit, 
and need not be returned, the mere convenience 
of the tiling would be sufficient to determine the 



166 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

sale of large qnaiitities, — the purchaser would carry 
it home in his hand. 

The maker of a cheap box like this would find the 
sale almost indefinite. It would he constant, and 
annually increasing. The same buyers would re- 
quire fresh supplies every season. A mere chip 
box, rounded out of a single shaving, and just 
stifi" enough to prevent the sides from collapsing, 
would answer every purpose. The pill-boxes which 
are made from shavins-s mav serve as the model. 
Here is a great and growing want, which our coun- 
trymen are abundantly able to suppl}^, and to which 
some of them cannot too soon direct their attention. 
If the cost of transmittino; the boxes to the buyers be 
too great for so cheap a contrivance, then let the 
shavings be manufactured of the exact size required, 
and delivered in a flat state to the buyer, with the 
circular bottom, by him to be put together during 
the leisure days of winter. A single touch of glue 
will hold the shaving in position, and a couple of 
tacks will keep the bottom in its place. The whole 
affair being for temporary use, need be nothing 
more than temporary itself A portion of the labor 
of manufacturing being done by the grower, will 
reduce the cost. If constructed as suggested, such 
boxes would be quite as neat as the majority now in 
use, while they would possess the charm of always 
being clean and sweet. Our country is at this 
moment full of machinery exactly fitted to produce 
them, much of it located in regions where timber 
and power are obtainable at the minimum cost. 
The suggestion should be appropriated by its owners 
at the earliest possible moment. 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



167 



CHAPTEE XYin. 

KASPBEEEIES THE LAWTONS. 

To strawberries succeeded raspberries. My stock 
of boxes was thus useful a second time. But rasp- 
berries are not always reliable for a full crop the first 
season after planting, and so it turned out with mine. 
They bore only moderately ; but by exercising the 
same care in rejecting all inferior specimens, the first 
commanded twenty-five cents a quart in market ; 
gradually declining to twelve, below which none 
were sold. I marketed only 242 quarts from the 
whole, netting an average of 16 cents a quart, or 
$38.72. In price they were thus equal to straw- 
berries. In addition to this, we consumed in the 
family as much as all desired, and that was not small. 
I had heard of others doing considerably better than 
this, but had no disposition to be dissatisfied. 

The trade in raspberries is increasing rapidly in 
the neighborhood of all our large cities, stimulated 
by the establishment of steamboats and railroads, on 
which they go so quickly and cheaply to market. It 
is probably greater in Xew York State than else- 
where. The citizens of Marlborough, in Ulster 
county, have a steamboat regularly employed for 
almost the sole business of transporting their rasp- 
berries to New York. In a single season their sales 
ot this fruit amount to nearly $90,000. The demand 



1^.\4 



1C)8 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

is inexliaustible, and the cultivation consequently in- 
creases. In tlie immediate vicinity of Milton, in tlie 
same county, there are over 100 acres of them, and 
new plantations are being annually established. The 
pickers are on the ground as soon as the dew is off, 
as the berries do not keep so well when gathered wet. 
I have there seen fifty pickers at work at the same 
time, men, women, and children, some of them 
astonishingly expert, earning as much as $2 in a day. 
Several persons were constantly employed in packing 
the neat little baskets into crates, the baskets holding 
nearly a pint. By six o'clock the crates were put on 
board the steamboat, and by sunrise next morning 
they were in Washington market. As many as 
80,000 baskets are carried at a single trip. The 
retail price averages ten cents a basket, one boat thus 
carrying $800 worth in a single day. All this culti- 
vation being conducted in a large v/ay, the yield per 
acre is consequently less than from small patches 
thoroughly attended to. There are repeated instances 
of $400 and even $600 being made clear from a single 
acre of raspberries. 

The culture in Ulster county, though at first view 
appearing small, yet gives employment to, and dis- 
tributes its gains among thousands of persons. The 
mere culture requires the services of a large number 
of people. The pickers there, as well as in 'New 
Jersey, constitute a small arm}^, there being five or 
more required for each acre, and the moneys thus 
earned by these industrious people go far towards 
making entire families comfortable during some 
months of the year. The season for raspberiies con- 



TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 169 

tirnies about six weeks. Many of the baskets which 
are used about JS'ew York are imj^orted from France. 
Frequently the supply is unequal to the demand. 
If the chip boxes were introduced, as sug^ted in 
the last chapter, the whole of this outlay to foreign 
countries could be stopped. It is strange, indeed, 
that any portion of our people should be compelled 
to depend on France for baskets in which to convey 
their berries to market. 

As my raspberries disappeared, so in regular suc- 
cession came the Lawton blackberries. I had cut off 
the tip of every cane tlie preceding July. This, by 
stopping the upward growth, drove the whole energy 
of the plant into the formation of branches. These 
had in turn been shortened to a foot in length at the 
close of last season. This process, by limiting the 
quantity of fruit to be produced, increased the size of 
the berries. I am certain of this fact, by long expe- 
rience with this plant. It also prevented the ends of 
the branches resting on the ground, when all fruit 
there produced would otherwise be ruined by beino- 
covered with dust or mud. Besides, this was their 
first bearing year, and as they had not had time to 
acquire a full supply of roots, it would be unwise to 
let them overbear themselves. Some few which had 
grown to a great height were staked up with pickets 
four and a half feet long, and tied, the pickets costing 
$11 per thousand at the lumber-yard. But the ma- 
jority did not need this staking up the first season ; 
but many of the canes sent up this year, for bearers 
the next, it was necessary to support with stakes. 

The crop was excellent in quality, but not large. 



170 TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 

I began picking July 20, and tlms had the third use 
of mj stock of boxes. I practised the same care in 
assorting these berries for market which had been 
observ^ with the others, keeping the larger ones 
separate from the smaller ones. Thus a chest of the 
selected berries, when exposed to view, presented a 
truly magnificent sight. Up to this time they had 
never been seen by fifty frequenters of the Philadel- 
phia markets. But when this rare display was first 
oj^ened in two of the principal markets, it produced 
a great sensation. None had been picked until per- 
fectly ripe, hence the rare and melting flavor peculiar 
to the Lawton pervaded evei^^ berry. They sold 
rapidly and netted me thirty cents a quart, the 
smaller ones twenty-five cents. There appeared to 
be no limit to the demand at these prices. Buyers 
clieerfuUy gave them, though they could get the 
common wild blackberry in the same market at ten 
cents. Now, it cost me no more to raise the Lawtons 
than it would have done to raise the common article. 
But this is merely another illustration of the folly of 
raising the poorest fruit to sell at the lowest prices, 
instead of the best to sell at the highest. 

The crop of Lawtons amounted to five hundred and 
ninety-two quarts, and netted me $159.84, an av- 
erage of twenty-seven cents a quart. My family did 
not fail to eat even more than a usual allowance. As 
soon as the picking was done, v/hile the plants were 
yet covered with leaves, Dick cut ofiP at the ground 
all the canes which had just fruited, using a strong 
pair of snip-shears, which cut them through without 
any labor. These canes having done their duty 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 171 

would die in the autumn, could now be more easily 
cut tjian when grown hard after death, and if re- 
moved at once, would be out of the way of the new 
canes of this year's growth. . 

The latter could then be trimmed and staked up 
for the coming year, the removal of all which super- 
fluous foliage would let in the sun and air more freely 
to the cabbages between the rows. The old wood 
being thus cut out, was gathered in a heap, and when 
dry enough was burned, the ashes being collected 
and scattered around the peach-trees. After this the 
limbs were all shortened in to a foot. They were 
very strong and vigorous, as in July the tops of the 
canes had all been taken off, leaving no cane more 
than four feet high. The branches were consequently 
very strong, giving promise of a fine crop another sea 
son. After this, such as needed it were staked up and 
tied, as the autumn and winter winds so blow and twist 
them about that otherwise they would be broken off. 
But subsequent practice has induced me to cut down 
to only three feet high ; and this being done in July, 
when the plant is in full growth, the cane becomes 
so stiff and stocky before losing its leaves as to re- 
quire no staking, and will support itself under any 
ordinary storm. I have seen growers of this fruit 
who neglected for two or three years, either from la- 
ziness or carelessness, to remove the old wood ; but 
it made terrible work for the pickers, as in order to 
get at one year's fruit they were compelled to con- 
tend with three years' briers. Only a sloven will 
thus faif to remove the old wood annually. I prefer 
removing it in the autumn, as soon as picking is over, 



172 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

for reasons above given, and also because at that time 
there is less to do than in the spring. ^ 

In the mean time the fame of the Lawton black- 
berry had greatly extended and the demand increased, 
but the propagation had also been stimulated. A 
class of growers had omitted tilling their grounds, so 
as to promote the growth of suckers, caring more for 
the sale of plants than for that of fruit. Hence the 
quantity to meet the demand was so large as to re- 
duce the price, but I sold of this year's growth 
enough plants to produce me $213.50. Of this I laid 
out $54 in marl, which I devoted exclusively to the 
blackberries. I had been adviied by a friend that 
marl was the specific manure for this plant, as of his 
own knowledge he knew it to be so. A half-peck 
was spread round each hill, and the remainder scat- 
tered over the groimd. A single row was left un- 
marled. It showed the power of this fertilizer the 
next season, as the rows thus manured w^ere surpri- 
singly better filled with fruit than that which re- 
ceived none. Since that I have continued to use this 
fertilizer on my blackberries, and can from experi- 
ence recommend its use to all who may cultivate 
them. 

"With the sale of pork, amoimting to $58, the 
receipts of my second year terminated. My cash- 
book showed the following as the total of receipts 
and expenditures : 

Paid for stable manure $200 00 

Ashes, and Baugh's rawbone superpliospliate . . m 92.00 

Marl 54.00 

Dick's wages 144.00 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 173 

Occasional help 94 00 

Feed for stock 79 30 

Pigs bought , ;^2.00 

Garden and other seeds 18 00 

Lumber, nails, and sundries 14.50 ' 

Stakes and twine 7 00 

$709.80 

The credit side of the account was much better 
than last year, and was as follows : 



From strawberries, 6 acres $857.60 

Lawton blackberries, 1 acre 159.84 

Lawton plante 213.50 

raspberries, 2 acres 88.72 

tomatoes, 1 acre 190.00 

cabbages 7O.20 

garden 63.00 

peaches, 10 trees in garden 58.00 

potatoes 24.00 

pork 58.00 

calf 2.00 



$1,734.86 



The reader will not fail to bear in mind that 
in addition to this cash receipt towards the support 
of a family, we had not laid out a dollar for fruits or 
vegetables during the entire year. Having all of 
them in unstinted abundance, with a most noble 
cow, the cash outlay for the family was necessarily 
very small ; for no one knows, until he has all these 
things without paying for them in money, how very 
far they go towards making up the sum total of the 
cost of keeping a family of ten persons. In addition 



174 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

to this, we had a full six months' supply of pork on 
hand. 

The reader will also be struck with the enormous 
difference in favor of the second year. But on dis- 
secting the two accounts he will see good reason for 
this difference. In the first place, some improve- 
ment was natural, as the result of my increase of 
knowledge, — I was expected to he all the time grow- 
ing wiser in my new calling. In the second place, 
some expenses incident to the initiatory year were„ 
lopped off; and third, three of my standard fruits 
had come into bearing. The increase of receipts 
was apparently sudden, but it was exactly what was 
to be expected. I used manure more freely, and on 
my acre of clover was particular to spread a good 
dressing of solid or liquid manure immediately after 
each mowing, so as to thus restore to it a full equiv- 
alent for the food taken away. This dressing was 
sometimes ashes, sometimes plaster, or bone-phos- 
phate, or liquid, and in the fall a good topping from 
the barnyard. In return for this, the yield of clover 
was probably four times what it would have been 
had the lot been pastured and left unmanured. In 
fact, it became evident to me that the more manure 
I was able to apply on any crop, the more satisfac- 
tory were my returns. Hence, the soiling system 
was persevered in, and we had now become so accus- 
tomed to it that we considered it as no extra trouble. 

The result of this year's operations was apparently 
conclusive. My expenses for the farm had been 
$709.80, while my receipts had been $1,734.86, 
leaving a surplus of $1,025.06 for the support of 



• TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 175 

mj family. But more than half of their support 
had been drawn from the products of the farm ; and, 
at the year's end, when every account had been 
settled up, and eveiy bill at the stores paid oif, I 
found that of this $1,025.06 I had $567 in cash on 
hand, — proving that it had required only $4:58.06 in 
money, in addition to what w^e consumed from the 
farm, to keep us all with far more comfort than we 
had ever known in the city. Thus, after setting 
aside $356.06 for tlie purchase of manure, there was 
a clear surplus of $200 for investment. 

I had never done better than this in the city. 
There, the year's end never found me with accounts 
squared up, and a clear cash balance on hand. Few 
occupations can be carried on in the city after so 
snug a fashion. Credit is there the rule, and cash 
the exception, — at least it was ten years ago. But 
in the apparently humbler trade of trucking and 
fruit-growing every thing is cash. Manure, the 
great staple article to be bought, can be had on 
credit; but all you grow from it is cash. Food 
must be paid for on delivery, and he who produces 
it will have no bad debts at the year's end but such 
as may exist from his own carelessness or neglect. 
Thus, what a farmer earns he gets. He loses none 
of his gains, if he attends to his business. They 
may be smaller, on paper, than those realized by 
dashing operators in the city, but they are infinitely 
more tangible ; and if, as in my case, they should 
prove to be enough, what matters it as to the 
amount ? The producers of food, therefore, possess 
this preponderating advantage over all other classes 



176 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

of business men: thej go into a market where cash 
without limit is always ready to be paid down for 
whatever they bring to it. A business which is 
notoriously profitable, thus kept up at the cash level, 
and consequently free from the hazard of bad debts, 
cannot fail to enrich those who pursue it extensive- 
ly, and with proper intelligence and industry. I 
could name various men who, beginning on less than 
a hundred dollars, and on rented land, have in a few 
years become its owners, and in the end arrived at 
great wealth, solely from the business of raising firuit 
and truck. 



TEK ACEES ENOUGH. 177 



CHAPTER XIX. 

LIQUID MANURES AN ILLUSTRATION. 

"No sooner had the autumn of my second year 
fairly set in, and the leaves fallen, than I turned my 
attention more closely than ever to the subject of 
providing an abundant supply of manure, in hopes 
of being able to devise some plan by which to lessen 
the large cash outlay necessary to be annually made 
for it. I did not grudge the money for manure, any 
more than the sugar on my strawberries. Both 
were absolutely necessary ; but economy in provid- 
ing manure was as legitimate a method of increas- 
ing my profits as rhat of purchasing it. I knew it 
must be had in abimdance : the point was, to in- 
crease the quantity while diminishing the outlay. 
Thus resolved, I kept Dick more actively at work 
than ever in gathering leaves all over the neighbor- 
hood, and when he had cleaned up the public roads, 
I .then sent him into every piece of woods to which 
the owner would grant me access. In these he 
gathered the mould and half-rotfed leaves which 
thickly covered the ground. I knew that he would 
thus bring home a quantity of pestiferous seeds, to 
plague us in the shape of weeds, but by this time 
we had learned to have no fear of them. By steadily 
pursuing this plan when no snow lay on the ground, 

8* 



178 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

he piled up in the barnyard a most astonishing 
quantity of leaves. There happened to be but little 
competition in the search for them, so that he had 
the ground clear for himself. All this addition to 
the manure heap cost me nothing. To this I added 
many hogsheads of bones, which the small boys 
of the neighborhood gathered up from pig-pens, 
slaughter-houses, and other places, and considered 
themselves well paid at ten cents a bushel for their 
labor. These w^ere laid aside until the best and 
cheapest method could be devised for reducing them 
to powder, and so fitting them for use. 

In the mean time, I frequently walked for miles 
away into the country, making acquaintance with 
the farmers, observing their diiferent modes of cul- 
tivation, wdiat croj^s they produced, and especially 
their methods of obtaining manures. As before 
observed, farmers have no secrets. Hence many 
valuable hints were obtained and treasured up, 
from which I have subsequently derived the great- 
est advantage. Some of these farmers were living 
on land which they had skinned into the most 
squalid poverty, and were on the high-road to being 
turned oif by the sheriff. Others were manured at 
a money cost which astonished me, exceeding any 
outlay that I had made, but confirming to the letter 
all my preconceived opinions on the subject, that 
one acre thoroughly manured is worth ten that are 
starved. Of one farmer I learned particulars as to 
the history of his neighbor, which I felt a delicacy 
in asking of the latter himself. Some instances of 
success from the humblest beginnings were truly 



N TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 179 

remarkable ; but in all these I found that laith in 
manure lay at the bottom. 

One case is too striking to be omitted. A Ger- 
man, with his wife, and two children just large 
enough to pull weeds and drive a cow, had settled, 
seven years before, on eight acres, from which the 
owner had been driven by running deeply in debt 
at the gi*og-shop. The drunkard's acres had of course 
become starved and desolate; the fences were half 
down, there was no garden, and the hovel, in which 
his unhappy family was once snugly housed, ap- 
peared ready to take its departure on the Vvdngs of 
the wind. Every fruit-tree iiad died. In this 
squalid condition the newly arrived German took 
possession, with the privilege of purchasing for 
$600. His whole capital was three dollars. He 
began with four pigs, which he paid for in work. 
The manure from tliese was daily emptied into an 
enjpty butter-firkin, which also served as a family 
water-closet, and the whole was converted into 
liquid manure, which was supplied to cabbages and 
onions. A gentleman who lived near, and who 
noted the progress of this industrious man, assured 
me that even in the exhausted soil where the crops 
were planted, the growth was almost incredible. 
On turnips and ruta-bagas the effect was equally 
great. Long before winter set in, this hero had 
bought a cow, foj- while his own crops were grow- 
ing he had earned money hj working around the 
neigliborhood. He readily obtained credit at the 
store, for he was soon discovered to be deserving. 
When away at work, his wife plied the hoe, and 



180 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

acted as mistress of the aforesaid butter-tub, while 
the children pulled weeds. His cabbages and roots 
exceeded any in the township ; thej discharged his 
little store-bills, and kept his cow during the win- 
ter, while the living cow and the dead-pigs kept the 
entire family, for they lived about as close to the 
wind as possible. 

This man's passion was for liquid manure. If he 
had done so much with a tub, he was of course com- 
paratively rich with a cow. Then he sunk a hogs- 
head in the gronnd, conducted the wash of the 
kitchen into it, and there also emptied the droppings 
from the cow. It Avas water-closet for her as well as 
for the family. It is true that few of us would fancy 
Buch a smelling-bottle at the kitchen door; but it 
never became a nuisance, for he kejDt it innoxious by 
frequent applications of plaster, which improved as 
well as purified the whole contents. It was laborious 
to transport the fluid to his crops, but a wheelbarrow 
came the second year to lessen the labor. There 
happened, by the merest accident, to be a quarter of 
an acre of raspberries surviving on the place. He 
dug all ronnd these to the depth of eighteen inches, 
trimmed them np, kept out the weeds, and gave them 
enormous quantities of liquid manure. The yield 
was most extraordinary, for the second year of his 
location there he sold $8i worth of fruit. This en- 
com-aged him to plant more, until at the end of four 
years he had made enough, from his raspberries alone, 
not only to pay for his eight acres, but to accumulate 
a multitude of comforts around him. In all this ap- 
plication of liquid manure his wife had aided him 
with unflagging industry. 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 181 

It was natural for me to feci great interest in a 
case like this, so I called repeatedly to see the grounds 
and converse with the German owner. As it was 
seven years from his beginning when I first became 
acquainted with him, his little farm bore no resem- 
blance to its condition when he took possession. 
There were signs of thrift all over it. 5lis fences 
were new, and clear of liedge-rows ; his house had 
been completely renovated ; he had built a large barn 
and cattle-sheds, while his garden was immeasurably 
better than mine. Every thing was in a condition 
exceeding all that I had seen elsewhere. His two 
girls had grown up into handsome young women, 
and had been for years at scliool. All this time he 
had continued to enlar2;e his means of manufacturino- 
and applying liquid manure, as upon its use he placed 
his main dependence. He liad sunk a large brick 
cistern in the barnyard, into which all the liquor 
from six cows and two horses was conducted, as well 
as the wash from the pig-pen and the barnyard. A 
fine pump in the cistern enabled him to keep his 
manure heap constantly saturated, the heap being 
always under cover, and to fill a hogshead mounted 
on wheels, from which he discharged the contents 
over his ground. The tub and underground hogs- 
head with which he commenced were of course obso- 
lete. If it be possible to build a monument out of 
liquid manure, here was one on this farm of eight 
acres. Its owner developed another peculiarity-— he 
had no desire to buy more land. 

This man's great success in a small way could not 
have been achieved without the most assiduous hus- 



182 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

banding of manure, and this husbanding was accom- 
plished by soiling his cow. As he increased his herd 
he continued the soiling system ; but as it required 
more help, so he abandoned working for others and 
hired whatever help was necessary. The increase of 
his manure heap was so great that his little farm was 
soon brought into the highest possible condition. In 
favorable seasons he could grow huge crops of what- 
ever he planted. But his progress was no greater 
than has repeatedly been made by others, who thor- 
oughly prosecute the soiling system. 

A frequent study of this remarkable instance of 
successful industry, led me to conclude tliat high 
farming must consist in the abundant use of manure 
in a liquid state. A fresh reading of forgotten pages 
shed abundance of new light upon the subject. The 
'fluid excretia of every animal is worth more than the 
solid portion ; but some are not contented with losing 
the fluid portions voided by the animals themselves, 
but they suffer the solid portions of their manure to 
undergo destructive fermentation in their barnyards, 
and thus to become soluble, and part, by washing, 
with the more valuable portions. 'Now it is well 
known that the inorganic matter in barnyard manure 
is always of a superior character, therefore valuable 
as well as soluble ; and this is regularly parted with 
from the soil by those who permit the washings to be 
wasted by running off to other fields or to the road- 
side. I have seen whole townships where every barn- 
yard on the roadside may be found discharging a 
broad stream of this life-blood of the farm into the 
public highway. The manure heap must be liquefied 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 183 

before tlie roots of plants can be benefited by tbe 
food it contains. Ko portion of a straw decomposed 
in the soil can feed a new plant until it is capable of 
being dissolved in water ; and this solution cannot 
occur without chemical changes, whose conditions 
are supplied by the surroundings. Such changes can 
be made to occur in the barnyard by saturating the 
compost heap with barnyard liquor. All that na- 
ture's laws would in ten years effect in manures in 
an ordinary state, when ploughed into the ground, 
are ready, and occur in a single season, when the 
manures are presented to the roots of plants in a 
liquid form. 

A suggestion appropriate to this matter may be 
made for the consideration of ingenious minds. 
Every farmer knows that a manure heap, when first 
composted, abounds in clods of matted ingredients so 
compact, that time alone will thoroughly reduce them 
to that state of pulverization in which manure be- 
comes an available stimulant to the roots of plants. 
Fermentation, the result of composting or turning 
over a manure heap, does measurably destroy their 
cohesion, but not sufficiently. Few can afford to let 
their compost heaps remain long enough for the pro- 
cess of pulverization to become as perfect as it should 
be. Hence it is taken to the field still composed of 
hard clods, around which the roots may instinctively 
cluster, but into which they vainly seek to penetrate. 
Some careful farmers endeavor to remedy this defect 
by laboriously spading down the heap as it is carted 
away. The operation is a slow one, and does not 
half prepare the manure for distribution. A year or 



184: TEN ACEE8 ENOUGH. 

two is thus required for these clods to become prop- 
erly pulverized, for thej remain in the soil inert and 
useless until subsequent ploughings and harrowing 
reduce them to powder. 

As farmers cannot wait for time to perform this 
office in the manure heap, they should have machin- 
ery to do the work. A wooden cylinder, armed with 
long iron teeth, and revolving rapidly in a horizontal 
position, with the manure fed in at the top through 
a capacious hopper, would tear up the clods into tat- 
ters, and deliver the whole in the exact condition of 
fine powder, which the roots of all plants require. To 
do this would require less time and labor than the 
present custom of cutting down with either spade or 
drag. Better still, if the manure could be so broken 
up as it is taken from the barnyard to the compost 
heap ; the process of disintegration thus begun would 
go on through the entire mass, until, when carted 
away, it would be found almost as friable as an ash 
heap. It is by contact of the countless mouths of the 
roots with minute particles of manure that they suck 
up nutriment, not by contact with a dense clod.* 
Hence the astonishing and immediate efficacy of 
liquid manure. In that the nutriment has been re- 
duced to its utmost condition of divisibility, and 
when the liquid is applied to the soil, saturation 
reaches the entire root, embracing its marvellous net- 
work of minute fibres, and affording to each tlie food 
which it may be seeking. 

We cannot use liquid manures on a large scale, but 
thorough pulverization of that which is solid is a very 
near approach to the former. Immerse a compact 



TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 185 

clod in water, and the latter will require time to be- 
come discolored. But plunge an equal bulk of finely 
pulv^erized manure into water, asd discoloration al- 
most instantly occm's. DiiFusion is inevitable from 
contact with the water. E^ow as rain is water, so a 
heavy shower falling on ground beneath which great 
clods of manure have been buried, produces in them 
no more liquefaction than it does on that which has 
been dropped in a bucket. On the other hand, if 
the ground be charged with finely pulverized ma- 
nure, a soaking rain will immediately penetrate all its 
comminuted particles, extract the nutriment, and de- 
liver it, properly diluted, into the open mouths of the 
millions of little rootlets which are waiting for it. 
Practically, this is liquid manure on the grandest 
scale. But no one can quickly realize its superior 
benefits from a newly buried compost heap, unless 
the latter has been efl'ectually pulverized before being 
deposited either in or upon the ground. 

I was so impressed by the example of the thriving 
German referred to, that I resolved to imitate him. 
He had given me a rich lesson in the art of manufac- 
turing manures cheaply, though I thought it did not 
go far enough. Yet I made an hnmediate beginning 
by building a tank in the barnyard, into which the 
wash from stable, pig-pen, and yard was conducted. 
This was pumped up and distributed over the top of 
the manm-e heap under the shed, once or twice 
v^^eekly. A huge compost heap was made of leaves, 
each layer being saturated with the liquor as the 
heap accumulated, so that the whole mass was moist 
with fluid manure. It was never sufiered to become 



186 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

dry. ISTow, as in the centre of a manure heap there 
is no winter, decomposition went on at a rapid rate, 
especially among the leaves, stimulated by the pecu- 
liar solvents contained in the liqnor. Thus, when, 
taken out for use in the spring, both heaps had be- 
come reduced to a half fluid mass of highly concen- 
trated manure, in a condition to be converted, under 
the iirst heavy rain, into immediate food for plants. 
Though my money-cost for manure for next season 
would be greater than before, yet my home manufac- 
ture was immense. As I was sure that high manm-- 
ing was the key to heavy crops and high profits, so 
my studies, this winter, were as diligently pursued 
in the barnyard as in the library, and I flattered my- 
self that I had gathered hints enough among my 
neighbors to enable me, after next year, to dispense 
entirely with the purchasing of manure. 

But I had other reasons for avoiding the purchase of 
manure — none can be purchased clear of seeds, such as 
grass and weeds. I have already suffered severely from 
the foul trash that has been sold to me. One strong- 
warning of the magnitude of the nuisance was given 
by the condition of my strawberries. A small portion 
of them was covered, at the approach of winter, with 
litter from the barnyard, and another portion with 
cornstalks. The object was protection from the cold ; 
and it may be added that the result, so far as pro- 
tection goes, was very gratifying. But when the 
covering was removed in April, the ground protected 
by the barnyard litter was found to be seeded with 
grass and other seeds, while that protected by the 
cornstalks was entirely clean. During a whole year 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH, 187 

I had the utmost difficulty to get the first piece of 
ground clear of these newly planted pests, and am 
sure that the labor thus exerted cost more than the 
strawberries were worth. From this sore experience 
I have learned never to cover this fruit with barn- 
yard litter. When they are covered, cornstalks alone 
are used. They are drawn back into the balks in 
April, where they serve as a mulch to keep down the 
weeds, and ultimately decay into manure. Though 
not so neat to look at, nor so convenient to handle as 
straw, yet they answer quite as well, and at the same 
time cost a great deal less. 



188 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



CHAPTEE XX. 



RESULTS. 

As usual with me at tlie opening of spring, the 
garden received onr first attention. Dick covered it 
heavily with mannre, cleared it up and made all 
ready for wife and daughter. This year we had no 
seeds to purchase, having carefully laid them aside 
from the last. In order to try for myself the value 
of liquid manuring, I mounted a barrel on a wheel- 
barrow, so that it could be turned in any direction, 
and the liquor be discharged through a sprinkler with 
the greatest convenience. Dick attended faithfully 
to this department. As early as January he had 
begun to sprinkle the asparagus ; indeed he deluged 
it, putting on not less than twenty barrels of liquor 
before it was forked up. It had received its full 
share of rich manure in the autumn : the result of 
both applications being a more luxuriant growth of 
this delightful vegetable than perhaps even the Phil- 
adelphia market had ever exhibited. The shoots 
came up more numerously than before, were whiter, 
thicker, and tenderer, and commanded five cents a 
bunch more than any other. As the bed w^as a large 
one, and the yield great, we sold to the amount of 
$21. I certainly never tasted so luscious and tender 
an article. Its superiority was justly traceable, to 
some extent, to the liquid manure. 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 1S9 

The same stimulant was freely administered all 
over the garden, and with marked results. It was 
never used in dry weather, nor when a hot sun was 
shining. We contrived to get it on at the beginning 
of a rain, or during drizzly weather, so that it should 
be immediately diluted and then carried down to the 
roots. I have no doubt it promoted the growth of 
weeds, as there was certainly more of them to kill 
this season than ever before. But we had all become 
reconciled to the sight of weeds — expected them as 
a matter of course — and my wife and Kate became 
thorough converts to Dick's heresy as to the impos- 
sibility of ever getting rid of them. I was pained 
to hear of this declension from what I regarded as 
the only true faith; but when I saw the terrible 
armies which came up in the garden just as regularly 
as Dick distributed his liquor, I confess they had 
abundant reason for the faith that was in them. 

But the barnyard fluid was a good thing, not- 
withstanding. It brought the early beets into mar- 
ket ten days ahead of all competitors, thus securing 
the best prices. It was the same with radishes and 
salad. The latter is scarcely ever to be had in small 
country towns, and then only at high rates. But 
whether it was owing to the liquor or not, I will not 
say, but it came early into market in the best pos- 
sible condition ; and as there happened to be plenty 
of it, we sold to the amount of $19 of the very early, 
and then, as prices lowered, continued to send it to 
the store as long as it commanded two cents a head, 
after which the cow and pigs became exclusive cus- 
tomers. The fall vegetables, such as white onions, 



190 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

carrots and parsnips, having had more of the liqnor, 
did even better, for they grew to very large size. It 
was the same thing with currants and gooseberries. 
The whole together produced $83 ; to which must be 
added the ten peach-trees, all which I had thinned 
out when the fruit was the size of hickory nuts, and 
with the same success as the previous year. This 
was in 1857, that time of panic, suspension, and in- 
solvency. That year had been noted, even from its 
opening, as one of great scarcity of money in the 
cities, when all unlucky enough to need it were com- 
pelled to pay the highest rates for its use. But we 
in the country, being out of the ring, gave way to 
no panic, felt no scarcity, experienced no insolvency. 
Peaches brought as high a price as ever; as, let 
times in the city be black as they may, there is al- 
ways money enough in somebody's hands to ex- 
change for all the choice fruit that goes to mar- 
ket. The fruit from the ten trees produced me $69, 
making the whole product of the garden $152. I 
thought this was not doing well enough, and re- 
solved to do better another year. 

At the usual season for the weeds to show them- 
selves on the nine acres, it very soon became evident 
that two years' warfare had resulted in a compara- 
tive conquest. It may be safely said that there was 
not half the usual number, and so it continued 
throughout the season. But no exertion was spared 
to keep them under, none being allowed to go to 
seed. This watchfulness being continued from that 
day to this, the mastery has been complete. We 
still have weeds, but are no longer troubled with 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 191 

them as at the beginning. The secret lies in a nut- 
shell — let none go to seed. ISTor let any cultivator be 
discouraged, no matter how formidable the host he 
may have to attack at the beginning. But if he will 
procure the proper labor-saving tools, and drive them 
with a determined perseverance, success is sure. 

As usual, the strawberries came first into market, 
and were prepared and sent off with even more care 
than fonnerly. The money pressure in the cities 
caused no reduction in price, and my net receipts 
were $903. An experienced grower near me, witli 
only four acres, cleared $1,200 the same season. 
His crop was much heavier than mine. If he had 
practised the same care in assorting his fruit for mar- 
ket, he would have realized several hundred dollars 
more. But his effort was for quantity, not quality. 

A portion of the raspberries had been thoroughly 
watered with the liquid manure, all through the 
colder spring months. It was too great a labor, with 
a single wheelbarrow, to supply the whole two acres, 
or it would have been similarly treated. But the 
portion thus supplied was certainly three times as 
productive as the portion not supplied. My whole 
net receipts from raspberries amounted to $267. 
The plants were now well rooted, and were in prime 
bearing condition. Since this, I have quadrupled 
my facilities for applying the liquid manure. A 
large hogshead has been mounted on low wheels, the 
rims of which are four inches wide, so as to prevent 
them sinking into the ground, the whole being con- 
structed to weigh as little as possible. The sprink- 
ling apparatus will drench one or two rows at a time. 



192 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

as may be desired. The driver rides on the cart, 
and by raising or lowering a valve, lets on or shuts 
ofi' the flow of liquor at his pleasure. Having been 
used on the raspberries for several years, I can testify 
to the extraordinary value of this mode of applying 
manure. It stimulates an astonishing growth of 
canes, increases the quantity of fruit, Avhile it secures 
the grand desideratum, a prodigious enlargement in 
the size of the berries. I find by inquiry among my 
neighbors that none of them get so high prices as 
myself. Every crop has been growing more profita- 
ble than the preceding one ; and it may be set down 
that an acre of raspberries, treated and attended to 
as they ought to be, will realize a net profit of $200 
annually. 

The Lawtons were this year to come into stronger 
bearing. Parties in 'New York and Philadelphia 
had agreed to take all my crop, and guarantee me 
twenty-five cents a quart. One speculator came to 
my house and offered $200 for the crop, before the 
berries were ripe. I should have accepted the offer, 
thinking that was money enough to make from one 
acre, had not my obligation to send the fruit to other 
parties interfered with a sale. But I made out a 
trifle better, as the quantity marketed amounted to 
896 quarts, which netted me $206.08. In addition 
to this, the sales of plants amounted to $101. As the 
market price for plants was falling, I was not anx- 
ious to multiply them to the injury of the fruit; 
hence many suckers were cut down outside of the 
rows, so as to throw the whole energy of the roots 
into the berries ; and I think the result justified this 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 193 

course. The demand for the fruit was so great, that 
I could have readily sold four times as much at the 
same price. As the season for the blackberries 
closed, all the stray fruit was gathered and converted 
into an admirable wine. Some seventy bottles were 
made for home use ; and when a year old, I dis- 
covered that it was of ready sale at half a dollar per 
bottle. Since then we have made a barrel of wine 
annually ; and when old enough, all not needed for 
domestic purposes is sold at $2 per gallon. It is a 
small item of our general income, but quite suffi- 
cient to show that vast profit may be made by any 
person going largely into the business of manufac- 
turing blackberry-wine. 

We raised nothing of value among the black- 
berries this year. The growth of new wood had 
been so luxuriant, that the ground between the rows 
was too much shaded to permit other plants to 
mature. In some places, the huge canes, throwing 
out branches six to seven feet long, had interlocked 
with each other from row to row, and were cut 
away, to enable the cultivator and weeder to pass 
along between them, and thenceforward this acre 
v/as given up entirely to the blackberries. As the 
roots wandered away for twenty or thirty feet in 
search of nourishment, they acquired new j)ower to 
force up stronger and more numerous canes. Many 
of these came up profusely in a direct line with the 
original plants. AVhen not standing too close to- 
gether, they were carefully preserved, when of vig- 
orous growth; but the feeble ones were taken up 
and sold. Thus, in a few years, a row which had 

9 



194 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

been originally set with plants eight feet apart 
became a compact hedge, and an acre supporting 
full six times as many bearing canes as when first 
planted. Hence the crop of fruit should increase 
annually. It will continue to do so, if not more 
than three vigorous canes are allowed to grow in 
one cluster ; if the canes are cut down in July to 
three or four feet high ; if the branches are cut back 
to a foot in length ; if the growth of all suckers be- 
tween the rows is thoroughly stopped by treating 
them the same as weeds ; if the old-bearing wood is 
nicely taken out at the close of every season ; and, 
finally, if the plants are bountifully supplied with 
manure. From long experience with this admirable 
fruit, I lay it doAvn as a rule that every single con- 
dition above stated must be complied with, if the 
grower expects abundant crops of the very finest 
fruit. Observe them, and the result is certain ; 
neglect them, and the reward will be inferior fruit, 
to sell at inferior prices. 

To the Lawtons succeeded the peaches, now their 
first bearing year. We had protected them for three 
seasons from the fly by keeping the butts well tarred, 
and they were now about to give some return for 
this careful but unexpensive oversight. Some few of 
them produced no fruit whatever, but the majority 
made a respectable show. I went over the orchard 
myself, examining each tree with the utmost care, 
and removed every peach of inferior size, as well as 
thinning out even good ones which happened to be 
too much crowded together. Being of the earlier 
sorts, they came into market in advance of a glut ; 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 195 

and tliougli tlie money-pressure in the cities was 
now about culminating in the memorable explosion 
of September, yet there was still money enough left 
in the pockets of the multitude to pay good prices 
for peaches. It is with fruit as it is with rum — men 
are never too poor to buy both. My 804 trees pro- 
duced me $208 clear of expenses, with a pretty sure 
prospect of doing much better hereafter. I had 
learned from experience that a shrewd grower need 
not be apprehensive of a glut; and that if panics 
palsied, or a general insolvency desolated the cities, 
they still contrived to hold as much money as before. 
Credit might disappear, but the money remained; 
and the industrious tiller of the soil was sure to get 
his full share of the general fund which survives 
even the worst convulsion. 

My acre of tomatoes netted me this year $192, my 
pork $61, my potatoes $10, and the calf $3. Thus, 
as my grounds became charged with manure, — as I 
restored to it the waste occasioned by the crops that 
were removed from it, and even more than that 
waste, — so my crops increased in value. It was 
thus demonstrable that manuring would pay. On 
the clover-field the most signal evidence of this was 
apparent. After each cutting of clover had been 
taken to the barnyard, the liquor-cart distributed 
over the newly mown sod a copious supply of liquid 
manure, thus regularly restoring to the earth an 
equivalent for the crop removed. It was most in- 
structive to see how immediately after each applica- 
tion the well-rooted clover shot up into luxuriant 
growth. I have thus mowed it three times in a 



196 TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 

season, and can readily believe that in the moister 
climate of England and Flanders as many as six 
crops are annually taken from grass lands thus treated 
with liquid manure. Indeed, I am inclined to be- 
lieve that there is no reasonable limit to the yield of 
an acre of ground which is constantly and heavily 
manured, and cultivated by one who thoroughly 
understands his art. 

Three years' experience of profit and loss is quite 
sufficient for the purposes of this volume. It has 
satisfied me, as it should satisfy others, that Ten 
Acres are Enough. I give the following recapitula- 
tion for convenience of reference : 



Expenses for three years. 1855. 

Manures of various kinds $268.00 

Wages and labor 102.00 

Feed for stock 28.00 

Stakes and twine for Lawtons 

Garden and other seeds 8.00 

Cabbage and tomato plants 80.00 

Lumber, nails,, and sundries 

Loss on cow 7.00 

Cost of pigs 12.00 



Beceipts for three years. 

Strawberries, 6 acres 

Lawton plants sold $460.00 

Tomatoes, 1 acre 120.00 

Garden, including ten peacli-trees . . . 80.00 

Cabbages 82.00 

Raspberries, 2 acres 

Lawtons, 1 acre 



1856. 


1857. 


$346.00 


$358.06 


238.00 


244.00 


79.30 


103.00 


7.00 


8.00 


13.00 




14.50 


81.00 


12.00 


12.00 


$709.80 


$806.06 


$857.60 


$903.00 


213.50 


101.00 


190.00 


192.00 


121.00 


152.00 


70.20 




38.72 


267.00 


159.84 


206.08 



TEN ACRES ENOrGH. 197 

Pork 49.00 58.00 61.00 

Potatoes 24.00 40.00 

Calf : 2.00 3.00 

Peaches, 804 trees, first bearing year. 208.00 

$791.00 1,734.86 2,133.08 

Expenses as above stated 455.00 709.80 800.06 

Annual profit $336.00 1,025.06 1,327.02 



This result may surprise many not conversant 
with the profits which are constantly being realized 
from small farms. But rejecting the income from 
the sale of plants, the pigs, and the calf, as excep- 
tional things, and the profit of the nine acres for the 
first year will be found to be nothing per acre, for 
the second year, $83.50, and for the third, $129.10. 
But there are obvious reasons why this should be 
so. The ground was crowded to its utmost capacity 
with those plants only which yielded the very high- 
est rate of profit, and for which there was an unfail- 
ing demand. In addition to this, it w^as cultivated 
with the most unflagging industry and care. Besides 
using the contents of more than one barnyard upon 
it, I literally manured it with brains. My whole 
mind and energies were devoted to improving and 
attending to it. No city business was ever more 
industriously or intelligently supervised than this. 
But if the reward was ample, it was no greater than 
others all around me were annually realizing, the 
only diiference being that they cultivated more 
ground.' While they difi'used their labor over twenty 
acres, I concentrated mine on ten. Yet, having 



198 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

only half as much ground to work over, I realized 
as large a profit as the average of them all. Con- 
centrated labor and manuring thus brought the 
return which is always realized from them when 
intelligently combined. 

For six years since 1857 I have continued to cul- 
tivate this little farm. Sometimes an unpropitious 
season has cut down my profits to a low figure, but 
I have never lost money on the year's business. ISTow 
and then a crop or two has utterly failed, as some 
seasons are too dry, and others are too wet. But 
among the variety cultivated some are sure to suc- 
ceed. Only once or twice have I failed to invest a 
few hundred dollars at the year's end. All other 
business has been studiously avoided. I have spent 
considerable money in adding to the convenience of 
my dwelling, and the extent of my outbuildings; 
among the latter is a little shop furnished with more 
tools than are generally to be found upon a farm, 
which save me many dollars in a year, and many 
errands to the carpenter and wheelwright. The 
marriage of my daughter Kate called for a genteel 
outfit, which she received without occasioning me 
any inconvenience. I buy nothing on credit, and 
for more than ten years have had no occasion to 
give a note. If at the year's end we are found to 
owe any thing at the stores, it is promptly paid. As 
means increased, my family has lived more expen- 
sively, though I think not any more comfortably. 
I lie down peacefully at night, thinking that I do 
not deserve more than others, but thankful that God 
has given me more. I rise in the morning with an 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 199 

appetite for labor as keen as that for breakfast. But 
others can succeed as well as myself. Capital or no 
capital, the proper industry and determination will 
certainly be rewarded by success. 



200 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



CHAPTEE XXI. 

A BARNYARD MANUFACTORY LAND ENOUGH — FAriH 

IN MANURE. 

As previously stated, there is no snccessfiil farm- 
ing without a liberal expenditure for manure. I 
had proved that high manuring would pay, and 
while anxious to increase the quantity, was desirous 
of reducing the money cost. I continued every 
season to scour the neighborhood for leaves, and to 
gather up every available material for the barnyard. 
But in addition to all this, in October and Kovember 
of my fourth year I purchased twenty heifers which 
would calve in the spring, intending to feed them 
through the winter, and tlien sell as soon as they 
had calved. My idea was, that they could be sold 
for a profit large enough to cover the cost of keep- 
ing them, thus having the manure all clear. I con- 
sulted many persons versed in this business, farmers, 
butchers, and others, before venturing on it, as it 
was a good deal out of my usual line of operations. 
I olso consulted all my files of agricultural papers, 
where I found set forth a multitude of experiences 
on the subject, the most of which led me tu conchide 
that it v\'ould be safe to try the experiment. There 
seemed to be but little danger of loss, even if nothing 
were made, while it was quite certain a good deal 
uf knowledge would be gained. 



TEN ACRE8 ENOUGH. 201 

I accordingly had a rough shed built, large enough 
to contain twenty cows, with an entry m front of 
them and a large feed-room at one end. Then man- 
gers were provided, and a plank gutter laid just back 
of where the cows would stand, into which all the 
droppings would fall, and down which the water 
would run into a wide earthen pipe which emptied 
into the cistern in the barnyard. Here the cows 
stood in a row, never being allowed to go out, except 
an hour or two at noon when the weather was fine. 
I agreed with Dick to take entire charge of the feed- 
ing and watering them, for the consideration of $30 
extra. I bought the cornstalks from some twenty 
acres near me, at §3 an acre, and these were deliv- 
ered from time to time as they were needed, there not 
being room on the premises for so large a quantity 
at once. I had provided a superior cutter, with 
which Dick cut up the stalks and blades, reducing 
them to pieces a half-inch long, and he then put them 
into a hogshead of water, where they remained a day 
and night to soak. Thence they were transferred to 
a steaming apparatus, constructed expressly for this 
purpose, vvdiere they were made perfectly soft. Corn 
meal, bran, and various kinds of ground feed were 
mixed in and steamed with the cut stalks, a sprink- 
ling of salt being added. A day's feed for the whole 
twenty was cooked at one operation. This prepara- 
tion came out soft and palatable, and the cows took 
to it greedily. The ground feed was varied during 
the season, and occasionally a few turnips, parsnips, 
aud cabbages were cooked up to increase the variety. 
I had no hay io give them, and they got none. 

9* 



202 • TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

But on the other hand, Dick gave them four good 
strong messes every day, that at night being a very 
heavy one. He said they throve as well as any cat- 
tle he had ever seen. The gutter behind them was 
cleaned out twice a day and sprinkled with plaster, 
thus keeping the place always clean and sweet. In 
fact, I made cleanliness the order of the day through- 
out the entire barnyard. The manure was thrown 
directly from the gutter into a wheelbarrow having a 
thick layer of leaves spread over its bottom, and then 
emptied in a heap under the manure shed. As the 
cows were also littered with leaves, these, when too 
foul for longer use, were taken to the same heap. 
Others were added, with cornstalks in occasional lay- 
ers ; and as each layer was deposited, the whole heap 
was saturated with liquor from the cistern. I do not 
think a better lot of common barnyard manure has 
ever been manufactured. Dick entered into the spirit 
of the experiment, and carried it through without 
once faltering. 

As soon as the cows began dropping their calves 
in the spring, I advertised them, and plenty of pur- 
chasers appeared, as a choice out of twenty was of 
some value. They had cost me $22 each. I had 
kept them an average of one hundred and forty days 
for each cow, at a cost of six cents per day for each, 
or $8.40, making with the first cost $30.40 per cow, 
or $608 for the whole. To this was added $60 for 
cornstalks and $40 for Dick, making a grand total 
of $Y08. I sold them at an average of $85.50, and 
thus realized $710, or a cash profit of $2. Instead of 
paying Dick $30 for his trouble, I told the fellow 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 203 

tliat as he had performed his duty so satisfactorily, he 
should have $40. This little voluntary contribution 
BO gratified him, that I feel assured its value has been 
refunded to me fourfold, by his subsequent attention 
as a professor of the art and mystery of manufactur- 
ing manure. 

Thus I made $2 in cash by the operation, besides 
having a great quantity of cornstalks left over, and a 
pile of manure certainly as ample as any for which I 
had paid $250. Moreover, it was on my own prem- 
ises ; it had been most carefully attended to during 
the whole process of manufacture ; I knew what it 
was composed of, and that the seeds of noxious weeds 
could not have been added to it. All these facts 
gave it value over the chance lots which farmers are 
often compelled to purchase, and from which their 
fields are many times sowed with thousands of 
weeds. Here was a clear saving of $250 added to 
my profits. 

The result was so encouraging, that I have contin- 
ued the practice of thus feeding cattle during the 
winter from that day to this, increasing the number, 
however, to twenty-five. I find no diflSculty in 
making sales in the spring. Sometimes I have lost 
a few dollars on a winter's operations, sometimes 
made a little profit, and sometimes come out just 
even. On the run of four years there has been no 
profit beyond the manure ; but that much is all clear- 
Thus the winter, instead of being a season of sus- 
pended profits as formerly, is now one of positive 
gain. The operation of thus feeding cattle is cer- 
tainly attended with trouble. But once provided 



204 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

witli all the conveniences for carrying it on, it is not 
only simple and easy, but becomes even interesting. 
'No one who has not tried it in a careful, methodical 
way, can have any idea of the rapidity with which 
the manure heaps grow, nor the size to which they 
idtimately attain. My neighbors having long since 
ceased to be amused at what they facetiously called 
the novelty of my operations, did not venture to ridi- 
cule even this. On the contrary, they rather ap- 
proved of it, though not one of them could tell how 
much it cost to keep a cow per week. But I impute 
no part of my success to their approval. The prac- 
tice is intrinsically a good one, and only needs being 
carried on properly to make it pay. 

Let me add, that there is a very cheap and con- 
venient mode of covering manure from the weather, 
which I have constantly practised, thus avoiding the 
cost of building sheds. I took inch boards which 
were sixteen feet long, and sawed them in half, 
making two lengths, each eight feet. The boards 
were as wide as could be had, say twent}^ inches. 
Battens were then nailed across each end and the 
centre, to prevent warping. Then to each end a 
board of equal width, and five feet long, was secured 
by strap hinges. The manure heap was then built 
up, say five feet high, and eight wide at the top. 
When thus finislied, one of the boards was placed 
across the top ; the ends being hinged, fell down 
over the sides of the heap, and touched the ground. 
Beginning at one end of the heap, the hinged boards 
were laid on until they reached to the other end. 
Thus the entire heap except the ends, was com- 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 205 

pletelv protected from the weather. The ends were 
covered with loose boards. Whenever rain was 
coming on, and it was thought tlie lieap needed 
water to prevent lire-fanging, this portable shed was 
lifted off in live niinutes. After receiving a good 
soaking, the shed was in five more niinntes reijlaced 
on the heap; and v;hen no composting was going 
on, the boards were simply stowed away in some 
bj-place- until again wanted. To those who be- 
lieve in the value of housing manure, but who 
cannot afford to erect buildings for the purpose, 
these portable sheds will be found, for $10, to 
be as effectual as a building costing $60, while 
at the same time they do not occupy any useful 
ground. 

I will not say that ten acres in 'New Jersey can 
be made to produce more money than ten acres 
located elsewhere, within reach of the great city 
markets. Without doubt, the productiveness of 
either tract will be in exact proportion to the care 
and skill of cultivation, and the thoroughness of 
manuring. In either case, it is utter folly for a man 
to attempt the cultivation of more land than he can 
manage thoroughly. The chances are then invaria- 
bly against him. I consider the real office of the 
ground to be merely that of holding a plant in an 
erect position, while you feed the roots. But it is 
nevertheless remarkable that the census tables show 
that the product of New Jersey per acre, when the 
whole area of the State is taken into account, is con- 
siderably greater than in any of the adjoining States. 
Tlie product per acre, in some of the fruit-growing 



206 TEN ACHES ENOUGH. 

counties nearest the two great cities, is even more 
remarkable. The average cash value of the products 
of all our market gardens is $20 annuall^y, while 
that of the gardens in ISTew York and Pennsylvania 
is only $5 each. Of our orchards it is $25, while in 
JSTew York it is only $10, and in Pennsylvania only 
$5. The value of agricultural implements and 
machinery is relatively far greater than in either of 
these empire States. Nothing short of a superior 
productiveness for truck and fruit, in the soil of 
'New Jersey, can account for such results. 

A farmer in my neighborhood sold from forty 
early apple-trees, occupying about one acre of land, 
400 baskets of fruit, which yielded, after deducting 
expenses, and ten per cent, commission for selling, 
$241.50, I have known pears to be sold at from $3 
to $5 per basket, and in smaller quantities at $2 a 
lialf-peck ; and three cherry-trees, of the early Ricb- 
mond variety, yielded $30 worth of fruit. Peach- 
trees, when protected from the w^orm, will bear lux- 
uriantly for twenty years. 

I know a small farmer, with six acres of rhubarb, 
who has realized $600 dollars annually from it. 
Another has twenty acres of asparagus, from which 
be realizes $600 per week during the season for 
cutting. Besides, it grows an acre of common 
gooseberries, from which his annual profit is $200. 
I have known another to sell $500 worth of tomatoes 
from a single acre, besides having many bushels for 
the hog-pen. I could name owners of very small 
tracts who are doing well in the same business. 
Asparagus, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 207 

currants, grapes, and gooseberries, grow to perfec- 
tion, and yield enormous returns when properly at- 
tended to, far surpassing any thing ever obtained 
from the heavier staple crops, such as grain, grass, 
and stock. 

But it is to be noticed that the greatest profit per 
acre is almost invariably realized by those who have 
very small farms. The less they have, the more 
thoroughly is it cultivated ; while the few who have 
sufficient faith in manure, and who thus convert 
their entire holding into a garden, realize twice 
or thrice as much per annum as they had paid for 
the land. I knew a striking illustration of the value 
of this faith in manure. It is in the person of a 
Jerseyman who began, twenty-five years ago, upon 
a single acre of rented land, with a capital of only 
$50, borrowed from a sister who had saved it from 
her earnings as a dairymaid. This man regarded 
the earth as of no practical use except to receive and 
hold manure ; and his idea was, that if he crowded 
it full enough, every rain would extract from it, and 
convey directly to the roots of the plants, the liquid 
nutriment which gives to all vegetation such amazing 
vigor. Thus, the solids, if in sufficient supply, would 
be sure to furnish the liquids, on which he knew he 
could rely. Though full of original and practical 
ideas, this was his absorbing one ; and he pursued it 
with an energy of purpose and a liberality of expend- 
iture that surprised the population of an entire town- 
ship. 

In spite of the disadvantages attendant on a neg- 
lected education, the force of this man's strong nat- 



208 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

ural sense carried liim forward with astonishing 
rapidity. True to his faith in manure, he bought 
and manufactured to an extent far exceeding all his 
neighbors. He soon obtained possession of a small 
farm, with ample time allowed for payment ; for his 
industry and skill established a character, and char- 
acter served for capital. In a few years he monopo- 
lized the contents of all the pig-pens in the city near 
which he resided, all that was produced by the 
slaughter-iiouses, all the lime from the gas-works, all 
the spent bark from the tanneries, and every tub of 
night-soil which came from the water-closets of a 
large population. He created a demand for manure 
so general, that the streets were traversed by men 
and boys with carts and handbarrows, who daily 
picked up the droppings from the numerous live- 
stock which passed over the roads, and -piled them 
snugly in fence-corners, composting them with leaves 
and rubbish, knowing that the great manure king 
would take them all. The quantity thus collected 
by these industrious scavengers was very large. In 
addition to all this, he purchased cargoes of marl, 
charcoal cinders from the pines, guano, and sloop- 
loads of manures from the city. The world within 
his reach seemed unable to supply his vast demand. 
His cash outlay for these fertilizers was of course 
enormous, and has amounted to thousands of dollars 
per annum. It has been constantly increasing, and 
grows even as I write. But his faith in manure Vv^as 
accompanied by works. "What he thus collected at 
so great a cost, was applied with singular shrewdness 
to the production of fruits and vegetables for the 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 209 

great city markets. His fields rewarded him in pro- 
portion as he enriched them. His neighbors, who, 
for miles around, had been astonished and incredn- 
lons at his unprecedented outlay for manure, were 
in turn astonished at the extraordinary cpantities of 
fruit and truck which he dispatched to market. As 
he went early and largely into the growing of rhu- 
barb, when all others were too timid even to touch 
it, so for -years he was the only man who sent tons of 
it to market during a long period in which it paid 
extravagant profits. By skilfully regulating his 
crops, he secured an uninterrupted succession during 
the entire season ; so that from the earliest to the 
latest period of the year he was constantly receiving 
large cash returns. His wagons have sometimes 
loaded an entire steamboat, sometimes an entire 
train upon the railroad. By growing asparagus, he 
has realized great profits. For years he commanded 
the Baltimore markets with his strawberries, while 
various other large towns depended on him for their 
supplies. I have been upon his thirty acres of this 
fruit during the height of the season, when fifty 
pickers were at work on ground which wore a tinge 
of luscious scarlet under the astonishing profusion of 
the crop ; while thousands of quarts, under adjacent 
sheds, were in process of being boxed for market. 
Of this fruit he has sent ninety bushels to market in 
a single day, distributed $300 in a w^eek among his 
pickers, while in the boxes to contain them his 
investment is $1,500. On strawberries alone this 
man could have grown rich. 

But they are scai'cely a tithe of what he has pro- 



210 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

duced. Easpbemes, blackberries, and all the smaller 
fruits have been cultivated quite as extensively. The 
same courageous intelligence which led him to out- 
strip all competitors in the application of manure, 
kept him awake to every improvement in fruit or 
vegetable as it came before the public. He not only 
procured the best of every kind, but bought them 
early, no matter how extravagant the price. Thus 
keeping in advance of all others, so his profits have 
exceeded theirs. More than once he has been cheated 
by the purchase of novelties of this kind, besides 
losing time and money in cultivating them long 
enough to prove the cheat; but these losses have 
been but as dust in the great balance of his profit. 

As may be supposed, such a man could not fail to 
become rich. From his humble beginning of a single 
acre he has gone on adding farm to farm, house to 
house, and lot to lot, and is ever on hand to purchase 
more. His passion is to own land. But even so 
thorough a farmer as he may in the end acquire too 
much to be profitable. 

The example thus set has had a marked influence on 
the population of entire townships. Men who at 
first, and who even for years, were incredulous of the 
propriety of using such vast quantities of manure, at 
length became converts to the example. High farm- 
ing thus came extensively into vogue. Meantime 
the facilities for getting to market were being con- 
stantly multiplied. N^w fertilizers were introduced 
and kept for sale iii all the country towns, the facility 
for obtaining them thus inducing a general consump- 
tion. As crops increased, so the great cities grew in 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 211 

size, the number of mouths to be fed enlarging with 
the supply of food. Under the pressure of all these 
several inducements, fruit and truck have been pro- 
duced in quantities that cannot be estimated. 

The first great impulse to its enlarged production 
in the neighborhood where the enterprising consumer 
of manure resided, to whom reference has been made, 
was the result of his example. His great success 
removed all doubt and disarmed all opposition. But 
even his was not achieved without un]-emitting in- 
dustry and intelligent application of the mind. 
Neither his hands nor the manure did every thing. 
But manure lay at the foundation of the edifice : 
without it lie would have toiled in vain to build up an 
ample fortune from the humblest of beginnings. As 
he succeeded, so let others take counsel, and have 
faith in manm-e. 



212 TEN ACKE8 ENOUGH. 



CHAPTEK XXII. 

PROFITS OF FEUIT-GKOWING THE TRADE IN BEEEIES. 

It cannot be supposed that agriculture is always a 
successful pursuit. On the contrary, we know it 
many times to be the reverse. But when one looks 
carefully into that branch of it which embraces fruits, 
especially the smaller kinds, the evidences in its favor 
as a money-making business multiply as w^e proceed. 
The reader must have some knowledge of the prodi- 
gious profits realized a few years since by the ;:oacii- 
growers in Delaware, wdiere 800 acres were cultivated 
in that fruit by a single individual. At one time he 
was compelled to charter several steamboats during 
the entire season, to convey his thousands of baskets 
to market. From only 70 acres the owner has 
realized a net profit of $12,000, in one season. The 
instance of my relative in Ohio, mentioned in an 
earlier chapter, afi'ords another illustration of what a 
very small orchard can be made to yield. I have 
known single peach-trees in gardens, in seasons when 
the general crop was short, producing as much as 
$20 each. Those who buy single peaches at the 
street corners in our cities, one or two for a dime, 
can readily understand these figures. I could point 
out a garden belonging to a widow, containing twelve 
plum-trees, from which slie regularly receives $60 
every year, and sometimes even more. Grapes are 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. ' 213 

never so abundant in market as to reduce the price 
below the i^oint of profit. 

The prices paid for pears are such as to seem ab- 
surdly high. But even when rebellion had most de- 
pressed the market, I knew a single tree to net §23 
to the owner. Another grower, from three trees, 
annually receives $60. A citizen of is^ew York is 
the owner of three pear-trees which have yielded 
eleven barrels, and produced $137. There is another 
tree in that State, seventy years old, from w^hich, in 
that period, $3,750 worth of pears have been sold — 
enough to pay for a farm. A young orchard of four 
hundred trees, some eight years after planting, at two 
years' crops yielded the owner $1,450. An acre of 
the best pear-trees, well managed, will produce more 
profit than a five-hundred-acre farm, without a twen- 
tieth of the care or capital. 

But examples almost without number may be 
given, where apple-trees also have yielded from five 
to ten dollars a year in fruit, and many instances in 
which twenty or thirty dollars have been obtained. 
If one tree of the Khode Island Greening will afiord 
forty bushels of fruit, at a quarter of a dollar per 
bushel, which has often occurred, forty such trees on 
an acre would yield a crop worth four hundred dol- 
lars. But taking one quarter of this amount as a low 
average for all seasons, and with imperfect cultiva- 
tion, one hundred dollars will still be equal to the 
interest on fifteen hundred per acre. Now, this esti- 
mate is based upon the price of good winter apples 
for the past thirty years, in one of our most produc- 
tive districts ; let a similar estimate be made with 



214 TEN ACEE8 ENOUGH. 

fruits rarer and of a more delicate character. Apri- 
cots and tlie finer varieties of the phim are often sold 
for three to six dollars per bushel, and the best early 
peaches from one to three dollars. An acquaintance 
received eight dollars for a crop grown on two fine 
young cherry-trees, and twenty-four dollars from four 
young peach-trees of only four years' growth from 
the bud. In Western 'New York, single trees of the 
Doyenne or Yirgalieu pear have often afibrded a re- 
turn of twenty dollars or more, after being sent hun- 
dreds of miles to market. 

These standard fruits, requiring several years to 
come into bearing, are too slow for the majority of 
cultivators, who, like myself, need something which 
will pay in a year or two. The whole berry family 
is pre-eminently adapted to meet this demand for im- 
mediate profit. Happily for the multitude engaged 
in its propagation, the business cannot be overdone. 
Could an exact calculation be made of the money ex- 
pended in the city of New York merely for the small 
fruits, the amount would be so enormous as to be 
scarcely credible, and would go far to prove the im- 
mense wealth which actually exists, in spite of the 
fact that thousands are sufi^ering all the stings of pov- 
erty. Take the strawberry as a faint index of the 
large sums of money that are annually laid out in the 
difierent varieties of fruit. One of the most epheme- 
ral of all fruits, only lasting its brief month, the straw- 
berry nevertheless plays no insignificant part in the 
role of our early summer business. In fact, this little 
berry may be said to be the prime favorite of the sea- 
son. Of a delicious flavor, with just sufficient of 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 215 

tartness to render it agreeable, it commends itself to 
the taste of young and old ; while its cooling proper- 
ties render it highly beneficial, in a hygienic point of 
view, during the early heats of the dog-days. Then 
its cheapness places it within the reach of the poor- 
est. It is alike welcome to the schoolboy who has a 
few cents of pocket money to invest in such delicacies 
as schoolboys are wont to indulge in ; to the laboring 
man, after the burden and heat of the day are over ; 
and to the wealthy, who has at his command the 
means of enjoyment of the most expensive kind. 

The first strawberries during the season generally 
appear at the Broadway saloons about the middle of 
May, and are sold at the very modest price of fifty 
cents per pint basket. A placard in the window an- 
nounces that a plateful, with cream, may be had for 
a similar small consideration. These early straw- 
berries are from Virginia ; but as they are small, with 
immaturity stamped upon them, it is to be presumed 
that there is not a very great rush for fifty cents' 
worths, even by such as feel like boasting that they 
had eaten strawberries and cream ere the frosts of 
winter had well disappeared. Soon, however, JS^ew 
Jersey begins to give up her stores of the delicious 
fruit, and prices fall from fifty to fifteen, from fifteen 
to six, from six to 'Qxe, and finally from five to three 
cents per pint. 

Almost the entire early crop of the 'New York 
market is grown in 'New Jersey, and by far the larg- 
est quantity brought into the city by any one route 
reaches New York by the New York and Erie Eail- 
road Company. The berries are conveyed in carts 



216 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

and wagons from the gardens where they are grown 
to the several raiboad stations, vdience they find their 
way to the respective ferries. Great quantities, how- 
ever, are conveyed in wagons direct to the ferries. 
Hence it is next to impossible to obtain exact infor- 
mation of the actual quantities brouglit into the city, 
and consumed by the inhabitants. All that can be 
done is to convey an approximate idea of the im- 
mense extent of the trade, leaving the reader to im- 
agine what must be the actual quantity, since that of 
which authentic information can be obtained is so 
enormous. 

The berries are largely shipped from Burlington, 
Monmouth, and Middlesex counties in ISTew Jersey. 
Large quantities are also grown in Bergen. The 
Bergen County Journal says, that from data furnish- 
ed, it considers 10,000,000 baskets a low estimate of 
the quantity sent to market in one season from that 
county alone. This evidently is a mistake, for, after 
a very close inquiry into the matter, it does not 
appear that any thing like that quantity has reached 
"New York from all places where tlie berry is grown. 
Even supposing that other markets besides that of 
ISTew York are indicated, the quantity named seems 
too large for credibility, as having been grown in a 
single county, however favorable the soil may be to 
the production of the fruit, and notwithstanding the 
utmost indefatigability of the growers ; and the 
more so when the Journal adds, " that thousands, 
perliaps millions of baskets, have rotted on the 
vines." 

The opening of the I^orthern Kailroad of New 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 217 



Jersey to Piermont, is another circumstance whicli 
has given an impetus to the trade. The opening 
took place just at the commencement of the season 
of 1859,— not earlj enough for the growers to make 
their arrangements for a very large crop, but just in 
time to enable them to take full advantage of the 
means of transit over the line, of the then ripening 
crop. Accordingly, as far as can be ascertained, 
400,000 baskets were brought over the new road. 
This looks well for a commencement, and holds out 
a good promise of an enormous trade in future sea- 
sons. The section of country through which the line 
runs, quietly undulating, is well watered, and admi- 
rably adapted to the growth of the strawberry ; and 
as the settlements are within easy distances of the 
stations, the fruit can be sent into market fresh 
picked and sound, retaining its full, rich flavor. 

The cultivation of the strawberry is very little 
attended to on Long Island. On inquiry at the 
railroad station there, it was found that so small is 
the quantity brought over by it, that it was not 
' deemed worth while to charge freight for the few 
parcels carried by travellers. The quantity may be 
safely set down at 25,000 baskets. No business is 
done in this fruit over the Hudson or the Harlem 
and ]^ew Haven Railroads. 

Besides the railroads, the steamboats bring to 
market large quantities of the fruit. It is impossi- 
ble to obtain correct statistical information of the 
trade from this source. The quantity brought from 
Keyport, E". J., alone, by two vessels, has been 
estimated at 1,750,000 baskets. 



10 



218 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

The following is an epitome of the business done, 
as far as can be ascertained : — 

Baskets. 

Over the New York and Erie Railroad 3,253,407 

" Railroad of Northern New Jersey . . 400,000 

" " Long Island Railroad 25,000 

" " Camden and Amboy Railroad 1,100,000 

From Keyport, in vessels 1,750,000 

" Hoboken and other places, in wagons . . 500,000 

7,028,407 



Say seven millions of baskets, in round numbers. 
Of the three and a quarter millions brought over 
the ISTew York and Erie Railroad, somewhat more 
than one-half are from Ramsey's and Allendale 
station, and the remainder from the stations on the 
Union Railroad and the Piermont branch. Of those 
brought by the Camden and Amboy Railroad, the 
great bulk is from Burlington county. 

It is difficult to form a correct estimate of the 
average price at which strawberries sell; but by 
carefully collating the statements of the principal 
wholesale dealers, and taking the mean of the sev- 
eral prices, throughout the season, $3 per hundred 
baskets, by wholesale, seems to be pretty near the 
mark. From the wholesale dealers the article some- 
times changes hands twice, before reaching the con- 
sumer, who, taking the average, may be said to have 
paid 3^ cents per basket, or $3.50 per hundred. 
Consequently, it will be seen that the retailer makes 
but a small profit, especially in cases where the 
strawberries reach him through the hands of the 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 219 

middle-man, who of course manages to make his 
share of gain in the transfer. The wholesale dealers 
generally sell on commission, accounting to the 
growers- for their sales, and reserving ten per cent, 
for their trouble. The largest quantity sold by any 
one dealer is about 300,000 baskets. The freight 
charge over the raih'oads is 121 cents per hundred 
baskets. 

The following figures will show what a conspicu- 
ous part this apparently insignificant berry plays in 
our social economics : 

700,000 baskets, at $3.75 per liundred $310,000 

Profit to tlie retailers, at 75 cents per liundred 45,000 

Commission to wholesale dealers, at 10 per cent 21,000 

Freight, at 12^ cents per hundred, all round 8,750 

This is only as far as can be ascertained, but there 
is reason to believe that thousands of baskets of 
strawberries find their way into the New York 
markets, of which no account can be obtained, thus 
tending to swell the enormous expenditure on this 
almost the smallest of summer fruits. 

It is equally difiicult to ascertain the quantity of 
this fruit which pours into Philadelphia also, during 
the season, but it is probably two-thirds as great as 
that which goes to 'New York. There are numerous 
growers near the former city, who dispatch to it from 
twenty to sixty bushels each, daily. 

An experienced writer on this subject estimates 
the consumption of strawberries in the foiu' great 
cities as follows — 



220 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

New York 54,000 bushels. 

Philadelphia 14,000 

Boston 11,000 

Cincinnati 14,000 

This estimate of the consumption of Philadelj)hia 
is a very erroneous one, as the consumption must 
fully equal that of New York. In 1860, no less than 
173,500 quarts of strawberries passed through the 
gate of only one of the numerous gravel turnpikes in 
New Jersey, on their way to Philadelphia. This is 
equal to 5,412^ bushels, more than one-third of the 
quantity estimated as aboA^e. 

He says that 8,000,000 baskets (five to the quart) 
have been received in ISTew York in a season. He 
adds, that the crop around these four cities does not 
exceed 25 to 50 bushSls per acre, although instances 
are reported where 100, and even 130 to 140 bushels 
have been produced on an acre, or in that propor- 
tion. The returns, therefore, vary from $100 to $800 
per acre, and the prices range from $1.50 down to 
12^ cents a quart. The former price is readily ob- 
tained in Washington at the opening of the season. 

He thence argues that in order to supply New 
York and vicinity with strawberries, about 1,500 
acres, of the choicest land is required, and 500 for 
the other cities named. This he alleges to be at 
least four times as much land as is either appropriate 
or necessary for the object, if the nature and cultiva- 
tion of the strawberry were only as well understood 
as the raising of corn. He contends that a crop of 
thirty bushels of strawberries to the acre, is only 
about proportionate to a corn ci'op of ten bushels on 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 221 

the same ground. He says tliat a strawberry plant- 
ation is seldom seen without having, after the first 
year, many more plants upon the ground than can 
obtain air or light sufficient to fruit well. The con- 
sequence is, that all our city markets are mainly sup- 
plied with inferior fruit, simply because some of the 
commonest kinds continue to produce a little stunted, 
sour fruit, even under the worst treatment. Supe- 
rior, well-grown fruit will easily produce twice and 
four times as much to the acre, and will command 
prices from two to four times larger in the city mar- 
kets : making the avails and the difference from the 
same land to be 25 bushels at 12J cents a quart, or 
at least 125 bushels at 25 cents a quart, or $1,000 or 
$100 an acre. He lays it down that an acre ought 
to be made to yield 125 bushels, and that no grower 
should be satisfied with less. 

That this yield and these profits can be realized, 
there are numerous evidences. Small plots of 
ground, thoroughly cultivated, have yielded even a 
double ratio. One grower in Connecticut realized 
$215 from strawberries raised on twenty-five rods of 
ground, or at the rate of $1,300 per acre. A citizen 
of Maine has raised them, on a small lot, at the rate 
of 300 bushels an acre. Another in New Jersey 
cleared $1,100 from three acres, and one of the agri- 
cultural societies in that State awarded the straw- 
berry premium to a gentleman whose ground pro- 
duced them at the rate of $1,222 an acre, clear 
profit. I have seen a crop ripening on three acres 
for which the owner was offered $800 as it stood, the 
buyer to pick and take it away at his own ex- 



222 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

pense. The offer was declined, and tlie owner real- 
ized $1,300 clear. Mr. Fuller, of Brookl^m, has 
grown at the rate of 600 bushels per acre, on a small 
plot of the Bartlett; and by the same mode of treat- 
ment, 400 of the Triomphe de Gand. 

All these returns are unquestionably the effects of 
high culture. Those who fail to j)ractise it, also 
fail to realize such returns. The slovenly cultivator 
complains that his strawberries run out. But this is 
because he permits the weeds and grass to run in 
and occupy the ground. The plant has no inherent 
tendency to degenerate. For the last few years, im- 
mense demand has existed for Wilson's Albany 
Seedling. Those at all conversant witli the subject, 
know that plenty of room is requisite to get the 
greatest quantity of runners from a given number of 
plants — the sale being perfectly sure, all dealers give 
this room ; the consequence is, while the plants are 
worth say $10 per 1000, all are fine large plants, and 
give a fair crop, even the first year after planting. 
Such plants tell their own story, and the demand 
continues. In a short time, prices come down ; and 
the supply increasing beyond demand, the dealer no 
longer thinks it worth while to give this room expressly 
for the growth of plants : the beds take care of them- 
selves, hence bear but little, and the plants furnished 
are always weak and spindling. These require the 
second year to fruit ; perhaps, in the interim, new kinds 
are pressed into notice, and from the old beds it be- 
comes more and more difficult to obtain strong plants, 
until the cry is raised that the once celebrated straw- 
berry has run its race, ^ow, the question is, whether 



TEN ACRES ENOFGn. 223 

the same kinds under the same circumstances, that is, 
strong runners from strong old plants, in good soil and 
plenty of room, will not continue to be productive. 

As this is not designed to be a treatise on the art 
of raising strawberries, so 1 shall not enlarge upon 
the subject. Every grower seems to have a method 
of his own, which he prefers over all others. There 
are works upon the subject, containing numerous 
facts with which every careful beginner should make 
himself familiar. But even in these are to be dis- 
covered the most extraordinary collisions of opinion, 
— one, for instance, recommending generous manur- 
ing, another insisting that poor ground only should 
be used, while a third declares that frequent stirring 
of the soil will of itself insure abundant crops. 
Amid all these antagonisms one great fact stands 
prominently fortli, that the strawberiy plant will con- 
tinue to live and produce fruit under every possible 
variety of treatment ; while another is equally con 
spicuous, that the better the treatment the better the 
return. It w^ould be presumptuous in a novice like 
me to undertake to reconcile these imaccountable 
discrepancies of the great strawberry doctors of the 
country. But I have learned enough to be satisfied 
that soil has much to do in the successful cultivation 
of this fruit. A variety which flourishes in one soil 
will be almost barren in another. Hence, in the 
hands of one grower it proves a great prize, but in 
those of another it is comparatively worthless. With- 
out doubt it is to this cause that much of the diversity 
of opinion as to certain varieties, as wetl as to the 
mode of culture, is to be attributed. 



224 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

JS^eitlier will I undertake to decide wliat sorts, 
among the cloud of new aspirants for public patron- 
age w^hicli are annually coming into notice, are to be 
adopted as tlie best. One is in danger of being 
confused by going largely into tlie cultivation of a 
multitude of varieties. Having secured a supply of 
a few which he has proved to be congenial with his 
particular soil, he should adhere to them. Small 
trials of the new varieties may be safely made, but 
wholesale substitutions are many times disastrous 
undertakings. Having found out such as suit my 
soil, I am content to keep them. The Albany seed- 
ling grows upon it with uftsm'passed luxuriance, and 
I shall probably never abandon it. Meantime 1 have 
tried the Bartlett, and found it a rampant and hardy 
grower, bearing the most abundant crops of luscious 
fruit. So I find McAvoy's Superior to be a beau- 
tiful berry, and a vigorous runner. In my soil the 
Triomphe de Gand does not realize the extravagant 
promise of fruitfulness which heralded its introduc- 
tion to public notice. My neighbors also complain 
of it in the same way. But for my own family con- 
sumption, I prefer it to any strawberry I have ever 
eaten. The flavor is rich and luscious beyond de- 
scription, while the crisp seeds crackle between your 
impatient grinders with reverberations loud enough 
to penetrate the utmost depths of a hungry stomach. 
So long as my vines continue to produce only one- 
fourth as much as others, I shall continue to grow 
this unsurpassable variety. It sends off runners in 
amazing aBundance. When grown in stools, with 
the runners clipped off weekly, it bears profusely of 



. TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 225 

enormons fruit ; and tlils metliod, I am inclined to be- 
lieve, is the true corrective of all unfriendly elements 
in the soil. In addition to these, I have, in common 
with " all the world and the rest of mankind," the 
Tribune strawberries, now growing finely in pots, 
and carefully housed for crop next summer. Having 
seen them in fruit, and having also entire confidence 
that the association by whom they are distributed 
would no more spread abroad a worthless article than 
they would circulate a vicious sheet, so I regard the 
propagation of these three plants as the beginning of 
a new era in the history of strawberry culture. 

I have very little doubt that, there are specific 
manures for the strawberry, and one of them will 
probably be found in Baugh's Rawbone Superphos- 
phate of Lime. This article is manufactured in 
Philadelphia, and is made of raw, unburnt bones, 
which in their raw state contain one-third of animal 
matter, and combines ammonia and phosphoric acid 
in the proper proportions for stimulating and nour- 
ishing vegetable growth. I have used it as freely as 
I' could afford to, on turnips, celery, and strawberries. 
On the two former its effect was very decidedly 
favorable. My celery uniformly exceeds that of my 
neighbors, both in size, crispness, and "flavor, and 
consequently commands a higher price. But its 
effect on strawberries has been perfectly marvellous. 
On some of them the superphosphate was scattered 
on both sides of the row, whence, by repeated hoeing 
and raking, with the aid of sundry rains, its finer 
particles found their way to the roots. The result 
has been a robust growth of the plants, such as 

10* 



226 TEN acl.es enough. 

cannot be seen on any other part of my ground. 
They hold up their headb, their leaves and fruit-stalks 
some inches higher than any others, while their whole 
appearance indicates that they have been fed with a 
more congenial fertilizer than usual. Many of them 
have put forth double crowns, showing that they are 
prepared to furnish twice the ordinary quantity of 
fruit. So impressed am I with the superior value 
of this fertilizer, that I have, this autumn of 1863, 
manured as many rows as I could, and shall hereafter 
substitute it wholly for all barnyard manure. It is 
applied with the utmost facility, it contains the seeds 
of no pestiferous weeds, and its virtues are so highly 
concentrated that a small amount manures a large sur- 
face. It is quite possible that it may not do so well 
on some soils as others, but no farmer can be sure of 
this until he has made the trial. Hence, as that can 
be made with a single bag, the sooner it is under- 
taken the better it will be for those to whose soil it 
may be found congenial. 

Thousands of dollars' worth of the common wild 
blackberry are annually taken to the cities and sold. 
For these berries the price has, within a few years, 
actually risen one-half. The traffic in them on some 
railroads is immense, especially on those leading into 
Philadelphia from Delaware. Millions of quarts are 
annually sold in 'New York and Cincinnati. A single 
township in New Jersey sells to the amount of $2,000 
and one county in Indiana to that of $10,000. The 
huckleberry trade of New Jersey is also very large. 
A single buyer in Monmouth county purchases sixty 
bushels daily during the picking season. All these 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 227 

v/ild berries are gathered by women and children 
who, without these crops, would find no other em- 
ployment. But they grow in every wood and swamp, 
in every neglected headland, while upon the old 
fields they enter into full possession. As they cost 
nothing but the labor of gathering them, so they are 
the bountiful means of drawing thousands of dollars 
into the pockets of the industrious poor. The cran- 
berry swamps of ^N'ew Jersey are as celebrated for 
the abundance of their products as their owners have 
been for permitting them to become the prey of all 
who choose to strip them of their fruit. 

Thus the demand for even tlie wild berries con- 
tinues to enlarge. Hence there must be sure sale 
for those of a superior quality. In fact, the cultiva- 
tion of fruit is yet in a state of infancy ; it is just 
beginning to assume the character its merits deserve. 
Probably more trees have been raised, more orchards 
planted, within the past ten or twelve years than in 
all previous time. Within a few years past it has 
received an unusual degree of attention. Plantatioiis 
of all sorts, orchards, gardens, and nurseries, have 
increased in number and extent to a degree quite 
unprecedented; not in one section or locality, but 
from the extreme north to the southern limits of the 
fruit-growing region. Horticultural societies have 
been organized in all parts ; while exhibitions, and 
National, State, and local Conventions of fruit- 
growers have been held to discuss the merits of 
fruits, and other kindred topics, until it has become 
the desire of almost every man, whether he live in 
town or country, to enjoy fine fruits, to provide 



228 TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 

them for his family, and, if possible, to cultivate the 
trees in his own garden with his own hands. 

There are now single nurseries in this country 
where a million fruit-trees are advertised for sale. If 
every hundred-acre farm were to receive fifty trees, 
all the nurseries would be swept bare in a single 
year. The States east of, and contiguous to, the 
Mississippi river, would require ten thousand acres 
of land for three hundred years, to plant ten acres of 
fruit-trees on every hundred-acre farm in this portion 
of the Union : and this estimate is based on the sup- 
position that all the trees planted do well, and 
flourish. If only a fifth of them perish, then two 
tliousand years would be required, at the present rate 
of su]3ply, to furnish the above-named quantity of 
orchard for every farm. Some nm-series already 
cover 300 to 500 acres, but even these go but a short 
w^ay in supplying the immense demand for fruit- 
trees. How absurd, then, in the face of such ^ an 
array of facts as this, the idea that our markets are 
to be surfeited with fruit ! Thousands of acres of 
peach-trees, bending under their heavy crops, are 
still needed for the consumption of but one city ; 
and broad fifty-acre fields reddened with enormous 
products, may yet send Avith profit hundreds of bush- 
els of strawberries daily into the other. If, instead 
of keeping three days, sorts were now added that 
would keep three months, many times the amount 
would be needed. But the market would not be 
confined to large cities. Railroads and steamboats 
would open new channels of distribution throughout 
the country for increased supplies, Xor would the 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 229 

business stop here. Large portions of the Eastern 
Continent would gladly become purchasers as soon 
as sufficient quantities should create facilities for a 
reasonable supply. Our best apples are eagerly 
bought in London and Liverpool, where $9 per 
barrel is not an unusual price for the best [N^ewtown 
pippins. And, by being packed in ice. pears gath- 
ered early in autumn have been safely sent to 
Jamaica, and strawberries to Barbadoes. The Bald- 
win apple has been furnished in good condition in" 
the East Indies two months after it is entirely gone 
in Boston. The world has never yet been surfeited 
with fruit. 



230 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



CHAPTEK XXIII. 

GENTLEMAN-FARMING ESTABLISHING A HOME. 

I AM sure I ought not to be considered as belong- 
ing to the class of gentlemen farmers. They go into 
the country because they are rich — I went because 
I was poor. Yet they have done good service to 
the public in various ways. They have imported, 
naturalized, and propagated valuable vegetables 
and fruits. They have patronized costly labor-sav- 
ing farm macliines and agricultural implements, 
they have made expensive agricultural experiments, 
in the bcDefits of which all cultivators have partici- 
pated. Especially lias this been so in relation to 
fertilizers, foreign and domestic, natural and artifi- 
cial. They have improved the breed of domestic 
cattle, and imported the best blood from abroad, 
including all the fine-wool led sheep. They have 
shown us how large crops can be grown, and have 
otherwise and in various ways radiated good influ- 
ences around them, and contributed science, dignity, 
and encouragement to the farmer's vocation. 

1^0 one can justly deny the value of their services. 
Yet it is not by merely cultivating new trees and 
plants, and exhibiting large vegetables, gigantic 
apples or pears, corpulative pumpkins, and enormous 
general crops, that agriculture is to be substantially 
improved and made profitable to the farmer who 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 231 

depends upon it for a living. Something more than 
prodigious crops or beautiful fruit is necessary for 
him. lie wants to know the cost of them — to see 
the balance-sheet in which, while credit is given for 
the sales of all these fine products, deductions are 
made for the expenditures rendered necessary to 
secure them. A tree may produce splendid fruit, 
but the peai-S may be few, the apples may be very 
perishable, and the choice peaches and other trees 
may bear only every other year, or only once in 
three or four perhaps, and then die before another 
crop. The accounts must therefore comprehend 
several years before the real profits of farming can 
be truly ascertained. 

Herein it is that gentleman-farming is most com- 
monly in fault. The pecuniary results are never 
either accurately known and stated, or are neglected, 
because of little consequence to the proprietor. 
When they happen to be ascertained and divulged, 
they are often discovered to be far from remunera- 
tive. This disregard of cost has brought this genteel 
agriculture, as it may be called, into disrepute. 
Common people turn away from it, as inapplicable 
to the condition of their purses. They think they 
cannot afi'ord it ; and doubtless they are really 
unable to indulge in this species of agricultural 
luxury. 

It may thus be assumed that this kind of agricul- 
ture, so far from being serviceable to many working 
farmers, is really injurious to them. They confound 
this uncalculating, heedless practice with book-farm- 
ing. They believe the conduct of their wealthy 



232 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

neighbors, wlio follow farming as an amusement, 
merely relying on their city business for their 
incomes, to be regulated by the instructions in the 
agricultural publications of the day. But I fear 
that this description of literature does not occupy 
them much. Moreover, it is wisely cautious in its 
recommendations, as those must be who have wit- 
nessed the futility of so many sj^eculattons and ex- 
periments. High farming is not bottomed on book- 
learning, if it fails to make suitable deductions for 
the cost of every operation. In truth, gentleman- 
farming is too rarely founded on any thing but a 
full purse, and an ambition to outshine all rivals at 
a county fair, without much regard to expense. As 
far as this is true, such agriculture is neither bene- 
ficial in a pecuniary view, either to themselves or 
to the working farmer. The latter finds little in 
such cultivation that he can copy, because the essen- 
tial element of expense is left out of the computa- 
tion. But book-farming ought not to fall under 
censure because genteel farming happens not to be 
lucrative. 

For th'e man who can afi'ord to buy almost every 
thing he needs, and sell very little that he raises, 
farming is undoubtedly a delightful amusement. 
For the man who can aiford to sell almost every 
thing he raises, and whose wants are moderate as 
mine, farming is a lucrative employment. To the 
oft paraded statistics of premium reports I cannot 
answer with a sneer. The question is simply this — 
whether farming, upon the whole, is a j)rofession 
warranting a certain degree of scientific culture, and 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 233 

giving room for its display — whether it is worthy to 
enlist the energies and ambition of a young man who 
has a good life to live, and a career to make? This 
question may be answered by looking almost any- 
where around us. I^o doubt a farmer should have 
some practical familiarity with those facts, whether 
of science or experiment, which have a bearing on his 
trade. It would be well for him to understand chem- 
istry in its application to farming, yet he should 
also assiduously gather up those unexplained facts for 
which even chemistry cannot account. 

It would be well for him to know why the johns- 
wort, the wild carrot, and the Canada thistle thrive 
so heroically in spite of bad treatment, where are 
their weak points, where the heel of these Greeks, 
what degree of heat in the compost pile will destroy 
the germinating power of seeds, and whether the 
law of one seed is the law of another seed. He 
should be a man of business and of some means, 
for he has his system to decide upon, his labor to 
engage and direct, his stock and implements to buy, 
and tlien his crops to sell, his bills to pay, and his 
books to balance. Superphosphates certified to by 
one set of gentlemen-farmers, and the most brilliant 
eulogies on American farmers, delivered by another 
set, will not help him much at these things. Money 
may : indeed every farmer ought to have a little of 
this commodity to start him fairly. 

In almost all locations there are difiiculties to 
encounter. One of these is that of securing efiicient 
laborers. American laborers of the right sort are 
rarely to be found. American blood is fast, and 



234 • TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

fast blood is impatient with a hoe among carrots. 
It is well enough that blood is so fast, and hopes so 
tall. These tell grandly in certain directions, but 
thej are not available for working over a heap of 
compost. . Farm labor, to be effective, must have 
the personal oversight of the master. There is 
breadth and significance in the old saying of Palla- 
dius, '' If you would push a crop through, look after 
it yourself.'' Anotlier difficulty is the lack of desi- 
rable market facilities. The middle-man stands 
between the producer and the consumer, and monop- 
olizes much of the profit. In this respect farmers 
might help each other by judicious combination, 
but they lack coherency as a class. They have too 
little esprit du corps. There is too much of isola- 
tion, and isolation will inevitably prey upon the 
farmer's purse. Then Young America has a grow- 
ing aversion to manual labor. He is a gentleman ; 
and shall a gentleman take off his coat? He is vain 
of his culture, and is mortified to find that ordinary 
sagacity and a rude energy surpass him in success. 
He learns with pain that knowledge is not confined 
to books, and that the shrewdness which can mould 
raw laborers into effective helps, tells more upon 
the year's profits than the theories of Liebig, or the 
experiments of Lawes. 

But the difficulties thus referred to are many of 
them gradually disappearing. The labor question, 
especially, has been wonderfully simplified by the 
introduction of new and effective implements, which 
enable the farmer to reduce the number of his hands. 
But since they do exist, — and I think my representa- 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 235 

tions, though tliey may seem to show the shady side 
of the business, will be sustained by the testimony of 
practical men, — it is best to meet the whole truth in 
this matter, whatever ugly faces it may wear. No 
man conquers a difficulty until he sees it plainly. 
Oaks are line things, and rivers are fine things ; and 
so are sunsets, and morning-glories, and new-mown 
hay, and fresh curds, and mxilch cows. But, after 
all, a farm, and farming, do not absorb all the 
romance of life, or all its stateliest heroics. There is 
width, and beauty, and independence indeed; but 
there is also sweat, and anxiety about the weather, 
the crops, and the markets, with horny hands, and 
sometimes a good deal of hay-dust in the hair. But 
if a man, as has been said, is thoroughly in earnest ; 
if he have the sagacity to see all over his farm, to 
systematize his labor, to carry out his plans punctu- 
ally and thoroughly ; if he is not above economics, 
nor heedless of the teachings of science, nor unob- 
servant of progress otherwise, nor neglectful of the 
multitude of agricultural lights which shine every- 
where around him ; let him work, and he will have 
his reward. But work as he may, it will be impossi- 
ble to toil harder than thousands in the cities ; who, 
with all their toil of head and hands, end life as pov- 
erty-stricken as when "they began. 

Somehow it happens, that almost every man who 
has been city-bred feels at times a strong desire to 
settle down among the trees and green fields, from 
a vague and undefined belief that the comitry is the 
scene where human life attains its highest develop- 
ment. He cherishes a hope, though perhaps a faint 



236 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

one, tliat he may yet possess a country home, where 
he may tranquilly pass his latter years, far away 
from city tumults and trials. This hope is founded 
on the instinctive desire there is in human nature to 
possess some portion of the earth's surface. I know 
that one looks with indescribable interest at an acre 
of ground whicli is his own. I am sure that there is 
something remarkable about my trees. I have a 
sense of property in every sunset over my own hills, 
and there is perpetual pleasure in the sight of the 
glowing landscape at my own door. I have found 
Ten Acres Enough ; and I know well w^hat pleas- 
ures, interests, and compensations are to be found 
in the little affairs of that limited tract. The win- 
dows of the snug library, into which I retire in win- 
ter, look out across the garden on the blank gable of 
my barn. When I came here, it was rough and 
unsightly. But now tha-t homely gable is a blank 
no longer. Every inch is clustered over with climb- 
ing roses, honeysuckles, and variegated ivy, in whose 
tangled mass of vine and foliage the song-birds build 
in summer, while to the same annual granary 
the snowbirds come in flocks to gather seeds in 
winter. Though I could not aspire to being a gen- 
tleman-farmer, seeing that I came to make my for- 
tune, not to spend one, yet I have sought to make 
farming a sort of social science, in which not only 
the head and hands could be employed, but the sym- 
pathies of the heart enlarged and elevated. In short, 
to establish a home for the family. 

I desire no association with the man or boy who 
would wantonly kill the birds that sing so cheerfully 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. * 237 

around ovir dwellings and our farms : he is fitted for 
treason and murder. Who among ns does not, with 
the freshness of early morning, call np the memory 
of the garden of his infancy and childliood; the 
robin's nest in the old cherry-tre^, and the nest of 
yonng chirping birds in the cnrr ant-bush ; the flow- 
ers planted by his mother, and nurtured by his 
sisters ? In all our wanderings, the memory of child- 
hood's birds and flowers is associated with that of 
mother, sister, and our early home. As you would 
have your children intelligent, virtuous, and happy, 
and their memory, in after-life, of early home a pleas- 
ant or repulsive one, so make your farms and your 
children's home as your business of life, then adorn 
that business throughout. If you would inspire your 
own children and your neighbors with the nobleness 
of your business, then draw about you such an array 
of beauty as no one but the cultivator of the soil can 
collect. Let every foot of your farm show the touch 
of refinement. While you are arranging your fields 
for convenient and successful cropping, let it be done 
with order and neatness. While building the fence, 
let it be beautiful as well as substantial. While 
arranging your vegetable-gardens and orchards, do 
not overlook geometrical regularity. Do not, on any 
account, omit the planting of flowers and the various 
kinds of fruit-trees. 



23S ' TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



CHAPTEE XXIY. 

UNSUCCESSFUL MEN REBELLION NOT RUINOUS TO 

NORTHERN AGRICULTURE. 

Looking back upon the incidents of my city life, I 
confess that increasing years bring with them an in- 
creasing respect for those who do not succeed in life, 
as these words are commonly used. Heaven has 
been said to be aplace for those who have not suc- 
ceeded upon earth ; and it is surely true that celes- 
tial graces do not best thrive and bloom in the hot 
blaze of worldly prosperity. Ill success sometimes 
arises from superabundance of qualities in them- 
selves good, from a conscience too sensitive, a taste 
too fastidious, a self-forgetfulness too romantic, a 
modesty too retiring. I will not go so far as to say, 
with a living poet, that 

" The world knows nothing of its greatest men ;" 

but there are forms of greatness, or at least excel- 
lence, that die and make no sign ; there are martyrs 
who miss the palm, but not the stake; there are 
heroes without the laurel, and conquerors without 
the triumph. 

It cannot be denied that there is a class of men 
who never succeed in business. With a fair amount 
of earnest industry, they are still unable to get on. 
Bad luck seems to be their fiite, and they are perpet- 



TEN ACKES ENOUGH. 239 

ually railing at fortune. In this they are not with- 
out sympathy. There are hundreds of simple, good- 
hearted people, who regard them as ill-starred 
mortals, against whom an inscrutable destiny had 
set itself, and who are always ready to pity their 
mischances and help them in their last extremity. 
But is not that a very foolish philosophy which re- 
fers the misfortunes or the prosperity of individuals 
to preternatural causes, or even natural causes en- 
tirely foreign to the persons? Some people, it is 
true, owe a great deal to accident. Much of their 
success is due to circumstances not of their own 
making. So it is with others who suffer disappoint- 
ment or disaster. But in those cases in w^hich fail- 
ure or success is certainly dependent on no extrane- 
ous agencies, but on one's own means and energies, 
I am confident that no little of the complaint of oui* 
hard lot is misdirected, and that the charity which 
helps us out of our successive difficulties is mis- 
placed. In plain words, our failures in this or that 
thing: are often attributable to the fact that we en- 
gage in enterprises beyond our power. The world 
is filled with examples of this truth. We see hun- 
dreds of men in all professions and callings who 
never achieve even a decent living. The bar of 
every city is crowded with them. They swell the 
ranks of our physicians and theologians, and swarm 
in the walks of science and literature ; in short, they 
run against and elbow you everywhere. They are 
the unfortunate people who have mistaken their 
mission. They are always attempting tasks which 
they have not the first qualification to perform. 



240 TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

Their ambition is forever outrunning their capa- 
bilities. They fancy that to call themselves law- 
yers, doctors, divines, or the like, is to be what they 
are styled. Their signs are stuck thickly on doors 
and shutters all over the city, but they are without 
honor or employment. Of course they never pros- 
per. They .have no fitness for their vocation, no 
practical skill, no natural talent, and hence they 
fail. 

But both they and society are losers by this. 
There is so much real ability for something useful 
that is thus sunk and wasted. The community is 
encumbered with a host of very incompetent bar- 
risters, preachers, physicians, writers, merchants, 
and so forth, and is deprived of as many good me- 
chanics, and farmers, and laborers. What a pity it is 
that men will not be content to choose their pur- 
suits according to their abilities. To encourage 
them to persist in any business for which they are 
not suited, and in which they never can obtain for- 
tune or credit, is really unkind. It would be much 
less cruel to let them early feel the inconveniences 
of following a calling for which they are unfit, and 
go into one for which Aature may have given them 
the requisite aptitude and powers. 

But, in the ordering of a good Providence, failure 
in one pm-suit does not imply failure in the next. 1 
know and have proved this. The motto should be 
to keep moving, to try it again. Try it a hundred- 
times, if you do not earlier succeed, and all the 
while be studying to see if you have not failed 
through some negligence and oversight of your own. 



TKN ACRK8 ENOUGH. 24:1 

Do not throw down your oars and drift stern fore 
most, because the tide happens to be against you. 
The tide does not always run the same way. Never 
anchor because the wind does not happen to be fair. 
Beat to windward, and gain all you can until it 
changes. If you get to the bottom of the wheel, 
hold on — never think of letting go. Let it move 
which way it will, you are sure to go up. 

If in debt, do not let time wear off the edge of the 
obligation. Economize, work harder, spend less, 
and hurry out. If misfortune should overtake you, 
do not sit down and mope, and let her walk over 
you. Put on more steam, drive ahead, and get out 
of the way. If you meet obstacles in your path, 
climb over, dig under, or go around them — never 
turn back. If the day be stormy, you cannot mend 
matters by whining and complaining. Be good- 
natured, take it easy, for assuredly the sun will 
shine to-morrow. 

If you lose money on a promising speculation, 
never think of collecting a coroner's inquest abouL 
your dead body. Do not put on long a face because 
money is not so plentiful as usual — it will not add a 
single dollar to the circulating medium. Preserve 
your good-humor, for there is more health in a single 
hearty laugh than in a dozen glasses of rum. Be 
happy, and impart happiness to others. Look aloft, 
and trust in God. Be prudent as you please, but do 
not bleach out your hair, and pucker your face into 
wrinkles ten years ahead of time, by a self-inflicted 
fit of the dismals. 

I went into the country with a detei*mination to 
11 



242. TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

succeed. As others had there succeeded, I could not 
be induced to believe that failure in so simple an en- 
terprise could overtake me, as I felt myself quite as 
competent as thej. A resolute will overcomes all 
difficulties. It was one of the leading characteristics 
of Napoleon to regard nothing as impossible. His 
astonishing successes are to be attributed to his in- 
domitable will, scarcely less than to his vast military 
genius. Wellington was distinguished for a similar 
peculiarity. The entire Peninsular campaign was, 
indeed, but one long display of an iron will, resolute 
to conquer difficulties by wearing them out. Alex- 
ander tlie Great was quite as striking an example of 
what a powerful will can effect. His stubborn de- 
termination to subdue the Persians ; his perseverance 
in the crisis of battle, and the emulation to which he 
thus stimulated his officers and men, did more for 
his wonderfiil career of victory than even his great 
strategic abilities. In the life and death struggle be- 
tween England and France, during the first fifteen 
years of this century, it was the stubborn will of the 
former which carried the day ; for though E"apoleon 
defeated the British coalitions again and again, yet 
new ones were as constantly formed, until at last the. 
French' people, if not their emperor, were completely 
worn out. The battle of Waterloo, which was the 
climax of this tremendous struggle, was also an illus- 
tration of the sustained energy, the superior will of 
the British. In that awful struggle, French impetu- 
osity proved too weak for English resolution. '' We 
will see who can pound the longest," said Welling- 
ton ; and as the British did, they won the battle. 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 243 

It is not only in military chieftains that a strong 
will is a jewel of great price, l^ations and individ- 
uals experience the advantages of a resolute will ; and 
this alike in large and small undertakings. It was 
the determined will of our forefathers to which, with 
divine hel]), we are principally indebted for our free- 
dom. For the first few years after the declaration 
of independence, we lost most of the battles that 
were fought. ^N'ew York and Philadelphia were suc- 
cessively captured by the foe ; South Carolina fell ; 
!N'ow Jersey was practically reannexed to England ; 
almost every thing went against us. Had the Amer- 
ican people been feeble and hesitating, all would have 
been lost. But they resolved to conquer or die. 
Though their cities were taken, their fields ravaged, 
and their captured soldiers incarcerated in hideous 
prison-ships, they still maintained the struggle, mak- 
ing the pilgrimage of freedom with naked feet, that 
bled at every step. Had our fathers been incapable 
of Yalley Forge, had they shrunk from the storm- 
beaten march on Trenton, we should never have been 
an indej)endent nation. There are people in the Old 
World, full of genius and enthusiasm for liberty, who 
3^et cannot achieve freedom, principally, perhaps, be- 
cause they lack the indomitable will to walk the 
bloody pilgrimage. The outbreak of the slavehold- 
ers' rebellion covered the Union armies with defeat 
at numerous points, because rebellions are always 
successful at the beginning. But the determined will 
to crush out treason will eventually overwhehn and 
master it. 

A strong will is as necessary to the individual as 



2M TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 

to the nation. Even intellect is secondary in im- 
portance to will. A vacillating man, no matter 
what his abilities, is invariably pushed aside, in the 
race of life, by the man of determination. It is he 
wdio resolves to succeed, w^ho begins resolutely again 
at every fresh rebuff, that reaches the goal. The 
shores of fortune are covered with the stranded 
wrecks of business men who have wasted energy, and 
therefore courage and faith, and have perished in 
sight of more resolute but less capable adventurers, 
w^ho succeeded in making port. In fact, talent with- 
out will is like steam dissipating itself in the atmos- 
phere ; while abilities controlled by energy are the 
same steam brought under subjection as a motive 
power. Or will is the rudder that steers the ship, 
which, whether a fast-sailing clipper or a slow river- 
barge, is worthless without it. Talent, again, is but 
the sail ; will is what drives it. The man without a 
will is the pupyjet and bubble of others by turns. 
The man with a will is the one that pulls the strings 
and catches the dupes. Young man, starting out in 
life, have a w^ill of your own. If you do not, you will 
drag along, the victim of perpetual embarrassment, 
only to end in utter ruin. If you do, you will suc- 
ceed, even though your abilities be moderate. 

All this may be view^ed as a digression. But it is 
not so. I do not write for the rich and prosperous, 
but for those who have been unsuccessful. They 
need encouragement and bracing up. If their expe- 
rience has been disastrous, that of others, who have 
succeeded, should be set before them. Some fifty 
years ago there lived in this city an old man, who 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 245 

by dint of tact, with the aid of keen perceptive facul- 
ties, had acquired much celebrity with a large class 
of his neighbors as something between a prophet and 
a fortune-teller. He did not, however, assume the 
character either of a religious fanatic or of a crafty 
disciple of Faustus. But he was well read in the 
Scriptures ; he had a good share of common sense, 
and a voluble tongue, and by degrees he attained a 
fame for wise sayings and for capability to advise, 
which he owed more to his natural talents and a lo- 
quacious disposition than to any less worthy means. 
Being advanced in years, and his lot humble, he 
turned the good opinion formed of him to the account 
of his livelihood, by discussing questions put to him 
by his visitors in a frank and manly spu^it ; and with- 
out ever demanding recompense, he was ready to re- 
ceive any gratuity that was oflfered by them on their 
departure. Moreover, his advice was always, if not 
valuable, at least good in kind; and few quitted 
his humble dwelling without leaving their good 
wishes in a substantial shape, or without having also 
formed a favorable opinion of their mentor. 

At length, so extensive did this good man's fame 
become, that many from curiosity alone were induced 
to visit him, and hear his wise sayings. His counsel 
was usually couched in short and terse sentences ; 
frequently in proverbs, and often in the language of 
the Bible, to which he would sometimes refer his 
inquirers for passages which he said would be found 
applicable to their case. As these passages were 
usually selected from the Proverbs, and other books 
of somewhat similar description, which contained 



246 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

some rule of morals, or wliich advocated the Cliris- 
tian duties, lie seldom failed to be right. Among 
others who were led hy curiosity to this wise man, 
was a young farmer, then not long entered npon the 
threshold of life, whom, after some of the Scri^^ture 
references adverted to, he dismissed with the parting 
advice, " To keep a smiling countenance, and a good 
exertion." The young farmer lived to become an 
old man, and is now gathered to liis fathers. But 
for many years I heard him from time to time revert 
with pleasure to his visit, and say that this simple 
aphorism had frequently cheered him in the hour of 
difficulty ; and that the thought of the old man's con- 
tented countenance and encoura^ino^ voice w^hen he 
uttered it, had gone far to make him place confidence 
in his counsel. 

We are all too prone- to brood over the clouds upon 
our atmosphere, and too feebly do we keep the eye of 
hope fixed on the first sunbeam which breaks through 
as the symbol of their dispersion. In reality, most 
of them are merely passing clouds. Some glances 
at a blacker picture still, will go far to clothe with 
brighter hues the less gloomy picture which may 
happen to be our own. Thus, with " a smiling coun- 
tenance and a good exertion," let every one of us, 
whether his lot be cast with the plough, the loom, or 
the anvil, put forth manfully his powers, and, thank- 
ful to a gracious God for the blessings yet spared, be 
it our effort in our worldly duties to follow the ex- 
ample set us in higher things, " forgetting those 
things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those 
which are before, let us press towards the mark for 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 24:7 

tlie prize ;" and if we thus demean ourselves, we shall 
not fail, in earthly any more tlian in spiritual things, 
to obtain our reward. 

All know that one effect of the rebellion was to 
paralyze nearly every kind of business, suddenly en- 
riching the few, but as suddenly impoverishing the 
many. On my quiet little plantation I was entirely 
beyond the reach of its disastrous influence. It lost 
me no nioney, because my savings had been loaned 
on mortgage. It is true that interest w^as not paid 
up as punctually as aforetime, but the omission to 
j)ay occasioned me no distress ; hence I occasioned 
none by compulsory collection. The summer of 
1861, however, did reduce prices of most of my pro- 
ductions. The masses had less money to spend, and 
therefore consumed less. Yet my early consignments 
of blackberries sold for twenty-five cents a quart, and 
the whole crop averaged fourteen. My strawberries 
yielded abundantly, escaping the frost which nipped 
the first bloom of all other growers, no doubt pro- 
tected by the well-grown peach-trees, and netted me 
sixteen cents. Easpberries bore generously, and 
netted quite as much ; wdiile peaches, though few in 
number, brought the highest prices. The total in- 
come that year was certainly less than usual, by 
several hundred dollars — but what of that ? It was 
double what I needed to support my family. Thus, 
no national disaster, no matter how tremendous, 
seems able to impoverish the farmer who is free from 
debt. Nothing short of the tramp of hostile armies 
over his green fields can impoverish such a man. 



248 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 



CHAPTEE XXY. 

WHERE TO LOCATE EAST OE WEST. 

Every great national calamity has tlie effect of 
driving men from the cities to engage in agricnltm'C. 
Such has been the result of the late war for the 
Union. I have been in a position to observe its 
operation on the minds of hundreds whom it covered 
with disaster. There has been the usual desire to 
break away from the cities, and settle in the country. 
The life-long convictions of my own mind have taken 
possession of the minds of others. Property in the 
cities ceased, for a time, to be salable, while farms 
have been in more general demand than for years 
past. Eoreign immigration was measm^ably stopped, 
because men fly from convulsions, not to countries 
where they are to be encountered. When war deso- 
lates the nations of Europe, the peopk migrate 
hither to avoid its horrors ; when it desolates ours, 
they remain at home. 

During the late disastrous experiences of city life, 
many of my friends upon whom they fell with great 
severity were free in their congratulations on my 
happy change of life. They had been as free in 
doubting the propriety of my experiment. J^ow, 
however, they looked up to me as possessing superior 
sagacity ; were desirous themselves of imitating my 
example, and sought instruction and advice as to 



TEN ACEES ENOUGH. 249 

how they should proceed. Three of them are al- 
ready located near me ; so that, instead of cnttmg 
entirely loose from old associates by coming into the 
country, I have attracted them into a closer intimacy 
than ever. Dear as my home was without them, it 
is rendered doubly dearer by close association with 
long-tried friends. 

Location is perhaps the most important considera- 
tion. A cash market all the year round for every 
variety of produce that a man can raise, is of the 
utmost importance to secure. Such is invariably to 
be found in close proximity to the great cities ; and 
there, singularh^ enough, the wealthiest farmers in 
the Union will generally be found. When we go to 
the extreme Korth, where their market is limited, 
and where they j)roduce only the heavy grains, and 
grasses, farming is so little an object that improved 
places can always be bought for less than then- cost. 
It is very frequently the same throughout the West, 
where so much that is raised upon a farm is valueless ; 
and where, for even the grains, they have a market 
which barely pays the expense of living. The ex- 
pense incurred in farming can be regulated by the 
profit of the crops; and where even no manure is 
required, the labor has to be expended, and crops in 
distant localities often fail to pay tlie expense of this 
labor. Where land will pay for a liberal cultivation, 
as well as fertilizing, it is much better, as a farmer 
must work his stock, and a certain amount of care is 
indispensable. The difference in value existing be- 
tween those farms near a market and those remote 
from it, is enormous. If the mind will consider the 
11* 



250 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

immense amount of produce in tlie way of fruits and 
vegetables wMch, near a city, will command the 
liigliest prices, and wliicli at a distance are an entire 
losSj a conception can be readily formed of what theyj 
amount to in dollars and cents. i 

Land in Illinois and Iowa can be purchased for a. 
dollar an acre, but com is at times of so little value 
as to be consumed for fuel. The wheat crop is an- 
nually decreasing in its acreable product, because no 
one values or applies manu.re. The West may be 
the paradise of the European immigrant, who, having 
abandoned friends and home, may with propriety 
settle in one spot as well as in another ; because, go 
Vv^here he will, he will be sure to find none but 
strangers. But for residents of our cities who go 
thither, very few acquire property by legitimate farm- 
ing, even after sacrificing all the tender associations 
of relatives and friends whom they leave behind, and 
enduring hardships and trials of double severity with 
those they need encounter if they would consent to 
suffer them on lands within thirty miles of their 
birthplace. If they become rich, it is by hazardous 
speculation, or by the rise in value of tJieir lands. 
So far as real, practical farming is concerned, it will 
be found that the East is incomparably suj)erior to 
the West ; but, so far as small farmers like myself 
are concerned, it would be folly to deny this su- 
periority. 

I say nothing as to the superior ease with which 
corn and wheat are produced in the two sections, 
but refer only to the amount of money that can be 
realized from an acre there and an acre here. Be= 



TEN AOEES ENOUGH. 251 

yond question, there are certain crops tliat are pro- 
duced, with greater ease in the Y/^est than in the 
East ; but of what vahie is this superior facility if it 
does not pay? I have cleared from a single acre of 
tomatoes more than enough to buy a hundred and 
sixty acres in Iowa. If I had located there, who 
would have been ready to buy my abundant crop of 
berries? The truth is, that it is population that 
gives value to land, — population either on it or 
around it, — to convert it into lots covered with 
buildings, or to consume whatever it may produce. 
The "West is a glorious region for the foreign immi- 
grant, or for him who was born upon the rugged 
hill-sides of the Eastern States, but it is not the prop- 
er location for the class for whose instruction these 
pages have been written. 

Few persons who have been nurtured and edu- 
cated all their days in Eastern cities, and who have 
probably never been more than fifty miles from 
home, have any correct idea of what this gigantic 
West really is until they reach the spot itself Why 
leave the privileges of a long-established civilization, 
—the schools, the churches of home, — the daily in- 
tercourse of acquaintances and friends, — merely be- 
cause land producing twenty bushels of wheat per acre 
can be purchased for a dollar, when that producing 
twenty times as much in fruit or vegetables can be 
had for fifty, and often even for less ? I doubt not 
there must be many in that region who now wish 
themselves back in their old homes. 

If my example be worth imitating, land should be 
obtained within cheap and daily access to any one of 



252 * TEK ALRES ENOUGH. 

the great cities. If within reach of two, as mine is, 
all the better, as the location thus secures the choice 
of two markets. In Pennsylvania, all the land 
aroimd Philadelphia is held at high prices. Much of 
it is divided into small holdings, many of which are 
rented to market gardeners at prices so high that 
none but market gardeners can afford to. pay them. 
Others are worked by their owners, who live well by 
'feeding the great city. Gradually, as the city ex-- 
tends in every direction, these small holdings are 
given up to streets and buildings, thus enriching 
their owners by the rise in value. The truckers 
move further back, where land is cheaper. But the 
modern fecilities for reaching the city by railroad 
have so greatly multiplied, that they are practically 
as near to it as they Vv^ere before. The yield from 
some of these small holdings is very large. But the 
cost of land thus situated was too great for my slen- 
der capital when I began. 

Hence I sought a location in ISTew Jersey. There 
unimproved land, within an hour of Philadelphia, can 
be purchased for the same money per acre which is 
paid in Pennsylvania as annual rent. For ten to 
twenty dollars more, in clearing up and improving, 
it can be made immediately productive, as the soil of 
even this cheap land is far more fertile than is gen- 
erally supposed. Thousands of acres of this descrip- 
tion are always for sale, and thousands are annually 
being bought and improved, as railroads and turn- 
pikes leading to -the city are being established. 
Many Germans have abandoned the West, and 
opened farms on this cheap and admirably located 



TEN ACRES ENOrGH. 253 

land, from which tliej raise prodigious quantities of 
fruit and truck for Philadelphia and 'New York. 

Colonies of New Englanders, allured by the early 
season, as compared with that of their own homes, 
the productive soil and the ready access to market, 
have settled upon and around the new railroad just 
opened, which leads south from Camden through the 
town of Malaga, wdiere a large tract has recently 
been divided into farms of various sizes. They bring 
with them all the surroundings of an advanced civil- 
ization. 

To those with no capital but their own labor and 
a determination to conquer success, these lands offer 
the highest inducements. Most of them can be had 
on credit, by men who will settle and improve, at 
twenty to thirty dollars per acre, witliin a little over 
an hour's ride to Philadelpliia. This tract is distant 
but a few miles from the Delaware river, and proba- 
bly no better could be found. Any number of loca- 
tions can be had. Many are already improved by 
buildings, fencing, and all the preliminary comforts 
w^hich cluster round an established home. The set- 
tler may choose between the improved and the unim- 
proved. 

But there is a better country north of Camden, 
lining the shore of the Delaware, where any number 
of locations may be found, improved by buildings, 
and at moderate prices, as well as on favorable terms 
as to payment. Yast progress in improvement has 
been made through all this region within ten years. 
New towns have been built, new turnpikes construct- 
ed, while the ' great railroad puts the cultivator in 



254 TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 

constant connection with the two overgrown cities at 
its termini. Land is increasing in vakie as popnla- 
tion ilows in. The maro-in of the Delaware, from 
Philadelphia upward, is being lined with villages, 
between which new farm-houses and cotta2:es are an- 
nually erected ; and the young of this generation will 
live to see it a continuous settlement of substantial 
Yillas, peopled by the swarms of educated families 
"which a great human hive like Philadelphia is an- 
nually throwing off. A location within such an at- 
mosphere of improvement must continually increase 
in value. The owner will find himself growing richer 
from this cause, just as the trucker on the Pennsyl- 
vania side has done — not so rapidly, but quite as 
surely. An investment in such land, properly man- 
aged, and not permitted to deteriorate, will assuredly 
pay. My own little farm is an illustration ; for more 
than once have I been solicited to sell at double the 
price it cost me. 

I am now looking at the future, as well as at the 
present. Yet the apparent anomaly of there being 
always an abundance of land for sale in so desirable 
a district, must not be overlooked. But it is so 
throughout our country ; there are -always and every- 
where more sellers than buyers. It is the same thing 
in the cities ; everywhere there is somebody anxious 
to sell. It would seem that we either have too much 
land in this country, or too small a population. Time 
alone can produce the proper equilibrium. The land 
cannot be increased in quantity, but it is evident that 
the population will be. As this is not a treatise 
either upon land or farming, but the experience of a 



TEN ACRES ENOUGH. 255 

single individual, so each claimant for a similar ex- 
perience must choose for himself. 

But choose as he may, locate as he will, he must 
not, as he liopes to succeed in growing the smaller 
fruits to profit, locate himself out of reach of a daily 
cash market. New York and Philadelphia may be 
likened to two huge hags of gold, always filled, and 
ever standing open for him to thrust in his hand, 
provided in the other he brings something to eat. 
From this exhaustless fountain of wealth, whole ad- 
jacent populations have become rich. The appetite 
of the cities for horticultural luxuries has revolution- 
ized the neighboring agriculture, enhanced the value 
of thousands of acres, infused a higher spirit into cul- 
tivators, elevated fruit-growing into a science, and 
started competition in a long rivalry after the best of 
every thing that the earth can be made to yield. All 
this is no spasmodic movement. It will go on for all 
future time; but in this grand and humanizing 
march after perfection in producing food for man, 
the careful tiller of the soil, with moderate views and 
thankful heart, will be sure to find Ten Acees 
Enough. 



THE end. 




ADVERTISEMENT 



SUPERIOR FARM LAND.— Franklinville and Lake 
Tract. 20,000 Acres for Sale, in Lots to suit Purchasers, 
at $12 to $30 per Acre. 

This fine Tract is in Gloucester county, New Jersey, on the 
railroad running from Philadelphia to Cape May, and ranging 
from 18 to 30 miles south of Philadelphia. 

The soil is a rich loam, exceedingly productive, and eminently 
adapted to the cultivation of grain, potatoes, grass, vegetables, 
gTapes, and all kinds of fruit. 

These lands are superior to any other on the line of this road, 
— finely elevated above tidewater, — undulating, well drained, 
clear of rocks and stones, and free from malaria, and intermittent 
or local fevers, — with copious supplies of pure soft water. 

The climate is mild, allowing out-door work to be continued till 
near Christmas, and resumed again by the middle of February. 
The healthfulness of the neighborhood is proverbial. To invalids, 
suffering from pulmonary complaints, to constitutional, or other 
infirmities, a spot more healthful or favorable than this does not 
exist. Snow rarely lies on the ground a week at a time, and 
most commonly it lasts but a few hours. The prevailing winter 
temperature is many degrees above the freezing point. 

The Tract adjoins, around and within its bounds, improved 
farms and thriving villages, with an enterprising population, — 
convenient to grist and saw mills, stores, churches, schools, and 
all the comforts and luxuries of social life. Lumber and bidlding 
materials can be had at moderate prices. 

Philadelphia and New York, the best markets in the Union, 
are reached by railway, — the former in a little over one hour, and 

1 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

whicli I saw there growing, and ate of at Lawrence Souder's 
farm, were larger and of finer quality than any of the same varie- 
ties that I hade ever raised or seen elsewhere Grape-vines 

were strong and vigorous, retaining their green foliage to the end 
of the season ; their general appearance fully corroborated the 

statement given of the fine crop produced I do not know 

of any tract possessing more natural advantages, with as good soil, 
— as near to the best markets in the Union, — as convenient to ex- 
tensive beds of 7narl, the cheapest and best fertilizer, — as well 
watered, — intersected with as good roads, — and as near thriving 
villages, where the settler will find churches, schools, grist and saw 
mills, stores, and other conveniences of civilized and socicd life." 

The advertisers solicit a personal examination of the Tract by 
all who contemplate the purchase of a farm, large or small, being 
confident the advantages of the soil, climate, and location, when 
viewed on the spot, Avill abundantly justify all the encomiums 
bestowed upon it ; and the low prices, and accommodating terms 
of sale, afford to every one an opportunity of securing a desirable 
homestead, which will be beyond the reach of the ordinary contin- 
gencies of pecuniary troubles. 

Visitors to the Tract take the West Jersey Railroad, leaving 
Walnut-street wharf, Philadelphia, at 9 o'clock, A. M., or 3 P. M., 
direct for Franklinville, a little over one hour's ride. John H. 
CoflSn or William Arrott will always be found at the railroad 
station, with carriage in waiting, to show the premises, "SAithout 
charge ; they will give every information that may be desired, 
and will conclude sales to those who wish to buy. Come prepared 
to stay long enough to examine thoroughly, and with cash to 
make a payment to secure the location that may be selected, is 
the spot may otherwise be taken by other purchasers. Full in- 
formation, with reports of Solon Robinson, Hon. William Parry, 
and others, will be sent free of expense by addressing 

JOHN H. COFFm, or WILLIAM ARROTT, 
Franklinville, Gloucester Coimty, New Jersey , 
or CHARLES M. MORRIS, West Jersey Land 
Agency, No. 136 Walnut-street, Philadelphia. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

the latter in about five hours, — thus insuring the highest prices 
for every thing the farmer has to sell. 

Every man should possess a home of his own, and here is pre- 
sented an uncommonly favorable opportunity for acquiring one, — 
far preferable to a settlement in the Western country, where pri- 
vations surround the settler, and the low prices consequent on his 
distance from markets often leave no compensation for his toil. 

In addition to the advantages of a location in a central and pop- 
ulous country, the liberal laws of New Jersey ofier great induce- 
ments to settlers here. A homestead is exempt from execution 
as long as it is occupied by its owner, his widow, or his children. 

The title of the land is perfect, and deeds will be given on pay- 
ment of one-fourth of the purchase-money, — the remainder may 
be paid in annual instalments, with six per cent, interest. 

Good locations may be selected on public roads near the villages 
of Franklinville, Glassboro', or Malaga, and at or near railroad 
stations. No restrictions exacted from the purchaser. 

Solon Robinson, of the New York Tribune, says of these lauds : 

" It is certainly one of the most extensive fertile tracts, in an al- 
most level 2'>osition, and suitable condition for pleasant farrning, 
that we knotc of this dde of the Western p)rairies. We found some 
of the oldest farms apparently just as profitably productive as when 

first cleared of forest, fifty or a hundred years ago If any 

one, from any derangement of business, is desirous of changing 
his pursuits of life, or who is from any cause desirous to find a 
new location and cheap home in the coimtry, and who may read 
and believe what we have truly stated, he will do well to go and 
see for himself what may be seen within a two hours' ride out of 
Philadelpliia." 

The Hon. William Parry, the well-known proprietor of the ex- 
tensive nurseries, at Cinnkminson, New Jersey, says of the Frank- 
linville and Lake Tract : 

" The character of the soil is a rich loam, the most favorable for 
all kinds of agriculture. The surface, being free and porous, is 
easily worked, either wet or dry, allowing the raTn, air, and 
w^armth (the three principal agents of vegetable growth) to circu- 
late through it, and is not injured by excess of water in winter 
and spring, nor by baking hard during the drought of summer. 

This soil is equally well adapted to horticulture, and the 

raising of aU kinds of fruits and early vegetables. The apples 



4 
A BOOK FOR EVERY HOUSEHOLD. 


10 \ 


ACRES 

i 
I 


KNOUGH: 

1 

■ ' 1 


"^^ 3i gviutiral Uxatm fov the mWmu \ 

\ 


i 

HOW A VERY SMALL FARM MAY BE MADE TO 
KEEP A VERY LARGE FAMILY. 


N E W YORK: , 
PUBLISHED BY^ JAMES MILLER, 

(S U C C E ? K u Jl T O C. !». K n A N C I S & CO.,) | 

52 2 BROADWAY. 
MDO<:or,xiv. 

1, 



•If this lady is not a great Poet, who isl"— Frai^r's Mag. 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING'S 

p a E M s , 

5 Vols., Blue ana Ooia, $5.00. 



AURORA LEIGH, 

AND OTHER POKMS; 

Blue ana Oold, Si OO. 



LAST POEMS; 

Blue O/iid OoldL, $1 OO, 



" Mrs. Browning's Poems are marked by strength of 
passion, by intensity of emotion, and by high religious aims, 
Bustained and carried out by an extraordinary vigor of imagiu- 
alion and felicity of expression. * * * It is pleasant to 
find a writer of such unquestioned ability as Mrs. Bro\ming, 
and with a love of nature so pure and healthy, turning away 
from the pantheistic tendencies of the age, aitd from the exclu- 
sive love and worship of nature, to recognize, in simplicity of 
soul, the graces and sanctities of a Christian faith, and to dwell 
amid the beloved and hallowed scenes which a Christian heart 
and imagination can create around us." — Christian Register. 



JAMES MILLER, 

§00listlto, fttblishtr, anir |mptter, 

522 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, 

OPPOSITB THE ST. NICHOLAS HOTEL, 

Has for sale a very complete and extensive stock of 

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN BOOKS, 

»N TBE VARIOUS DEPARTMEXTS OF LITERATURE; 
INCLUDING 
STANDARD EDITIONS OF TUE BEST AUTHOKS IN 

HISTORY, BIOGMPHY, BELLES-LETTRES, ETC. 

FINELY BOUND IN MOROCCO, CALF, ETC., FOR 

DRAWING-ROOM LIBRARIES; 

LIKEWISE ORNAMENTED ANT) RICHLY EMBELLISHED BOOKS 
OF PLATES FOR THE CENTRE-TABLE. 

\* Particular attention given to orders from Public and 
Private Libraries. 



ENGLISH AND AMERICAN PERIODICALS 

supplied and served carefully and faithfully to Subscribers 
throughout the city, or sent by mail to the country. Orders 
from any part of the world, with a remittance or reference 
for payment in New York, will be promptly attended to. 



IMPORTATION OF ALL BOOKS & PERIODICALS 
for which he may receive orders, a small commission only 
being charged for the business. The same attention given 
to an order for a single copy as for a quantity. 



BOOK BINDING IN ALL ITS BRANCHES. 



WONDERFUL DISCOVERY 

THE ORIENTAL HYGRO-BAROMETER 

OR NATURAL WEATHER BNDflCATOR.^ ' 

Sahhinf tS'"''"''''* '^ ^^'^ invention of Prof. Louis 
andAva^Sffn"' ^/;«"^^^^. of Nashville. IW 
and A^ as introduced by him to the public, for the 
first time, just previous to the breakinFout of the 
SS^Avt Itsmovingprinciple is a natiuSl plant! 
which Avas discovered in the Arabian Desert near 
Damascus, in Asia, a natural curiosity? and rS 
prove one of the most valuable discoveries of Jhe 
nineteenth centurj^ foreteUing, as it does the 4 
nous changes of the weather in all climates" 

throughout theyear. itswonderfulproperticThavo 
astonished the scholars and scientific rnTn of Eu^ 

that no difficulty AviU be found in testing itf na^ 

'Ihough a vegetable production, the Natural 
JVeather Indicator is indestructible, and wm con- 
tinue to perform its functions for all time in any 
cimate, and at all seasons, though submerged ?J 
rll the strongest acids knoAA-n to chemists, iSid- 

aSnfi-t'"''?i^*^''.^'^P^""^' ^■«" *« boiling Avater 
and boihng oil, and ice Avater, it remains indict and 

1 ili nf^"'''*''"^''^'^^ ""'' ^^racity, and will not decay 
Sni?a?^iSSes?"' -"^-^^ -^^tanccs used fo'r 
It is now presented for the first time to the sr-n- 
eral public of the United States. Space alonolre- 
vents the inti'oduction of the hundi!-ds of Simo- 
sifffice" ^''°'" ""* "^ ^^"o^derful properties, one must 

PROFESSOR BOWLING says :-As for oursrlf 
we have been closely Avatching one of Mr UJlman's 
ins ruments for more than a year, ancfare coSc i 
.^mT+ifvnif '.?' "i!'^'"^ way altogether superior to auy ' 
contriA ance,tor hygrcmetrical observations.knoAATi. 
The one m our study is as sentine now as it Avas 
^^If^l^^^'^J^'f.^^''- The moisture from an in- 
lant's breath Avill instantly put the index in mo-, j 

„«T+f Plants hav-c been subjected to long boihng. I 
and then hastily dried on u stove, without sufiering 
the shghtest loss of that peculiar sensitiveness 
which- --acterisesthem. They have been placed 

, „ *-"' 1"^ ^ sulphuric acid, after Avhich thevAvouIrl 

graduaUy assume their ongmal shape, and be , ,..aced in the box with the judex fitted on 1 
"keep time " precisely with those that had not been subjected to such experiments' There ' 
IS no apparent ifasonAvhy such nninstniment should not last a thousand years It is the I 
mostjiimple of ell imaginable contrivances capable of securing important ends ' 1 

"^vithoncof these beautiful little instruments, the farmer Avould have lio difficult v in I 
anticipating storm, rain or sunshine. This hygrometer Avould enable the farmer lar better tn ' 
anticipate l no weather, than he could by any lamiliarity with the best barometer. The su<\lcn 
fall of the mercury in tho barometer Asill foretell .wjpd or rain, but no one can tell Avhieh imtil 
he ascertains the hygrometric stafe of the air. If it pe dry. Avind AviU come ; if the atmospiei^ 
IS damp, there v-iii be ram. So the farmer noticin^the mercury high in the thermometer 
and tui-nmg to his hygrometer, perceives a large amount of aqueous Aapcr indicated S 
knoAv that ram IS at hand ; while, upon the contrary, however hot the weathei if the -'lir S 
diy, he Avill not look for rain. This instrument requires no care or attention. Hang it un on 
a nail m a verandah, or hall, and, we beheve, it would lun one hundred years with the urcvA- 
est ftcc JV3'Cy, ^ 

Pamphlets with fuU description can.be had Ito cpplication io the undersitnicd address 

.4.T,?^^^'?Tf*™'?''''l*A^^''*'^''i^'^''''''^*^^P''^P''^^^-'«^«^ prepared to sell State and Countv 
rights lor the sale of them. The extremely low price at Avhicli they are sold ( Three DoHaS^ 
commends it to every householder. It has proved one of the most saleable articVscvei 
mtroduced : and pos^eKses all the elements of success, viz. : CHEAPNESS TTWvtttvvIq 
and LURABILITY. Tor further particulars address ^^J^lM-SS, LSLll;L^LsS 

THE HYGRO-BAROMETER MAAUFACTURIXG Co., 

BOX 5611 NEW YORK, '' 




Qt at their Office, 221 Pearl Street. 



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